So, six days ago I embarked on the second portion of my journey, the hunt for the most elite of urban kickers in Niseko, Japan. Well, not necessarily for an urban booter, but for multiple types of exciting terrain, great snow, hiking and outdoor fun as well as Japanese city craziness. Originally my plan was to return to Europe and explore more of the eastern portion and Scandinavia, but when Paul and Amy planted the seed in my head of amazing snow and the most rippingest of pals, I had to go. They arrived just under a week prior to my arrival, and had prepped my room with a very special local delicacy; white liquor godo. For those of you who have never experienced it, what we’re talking about here is essentially lower percentage vodka (20-25%) sold to you in either the blue (20%) or red (25%) variety. Seen as a novelty item by some, Paul, Amy and I take this product very seriously. My first day on “the slopes” was fantastic, as we had a powder filled day at Moiwa. This awesome little resort had cornices everywhere to launch off, and really great spaced out Japanese trees to crank aggressive euro inspired turns. The day featured two of my soon to be great pals Anders and Tobias, Swedes that have recently been deemed traitors by the Swedish government and have relocated to the Norwegian city of Oslo. Though the government may not trust these men, I have complete faith in their life choices as well as facial hair grooming. The next couple days were filled with many new people entering my life… oh yeah, by the way I’m living in a home of 26 people!! Primarily Aussies, with 6 Japanese, us 3 Canadians, 2 Swedes and a Kiwi. There’s a lot of racist in the house, especially between the Aussies and Canadians, but I think it’s something that we can work through long term. There’s been a couple pellet gun incidents, but other than that we’ve kept it pretty clean. Honestly though, this house is amazing. It’s pretty wild to live with this many people and have so many characters in one place. The comedic efforts never seem to stop, and with this many people there’s always someone to contribute and ensure that lulls never really occur. Unfortunately the Swedes leave tonight, but we’ve made sure to give them a proper send off. Over the past 72 hours Paul, Amy, Anders, myself and a few other contributors have built an epic snow cave that is only accessible from the side door of the house. It has a cavern in the middle large enough to comfortably hang out, and features benches with carpeted seats, a snowboard table and white liquor godo. We will be charging 1,000 yen to enter and will likely fund our entire trip via this project. Really though, it may not actually be a revenue stream, but it’s gonna make for one hell of a party. Aside from the house, the great turns and fun parties, the shopping experience has been off the hook. Paul, Amy and I have very similar shopping styles here, “if it’s funny, buy it”. With that approach we’ve had some fun culinary experiences, and found some truly unique alcoholic products. Paul could recently be found drinking rum that came from what looked to be a small syrup container with pictures of orange bunnies holding birthday cakes, complete with lit candles. Ironically, in large part due to the label art, this was absolutely something worth celebrating. The following days should be filled with good snow, and nice times with my new pals. Paul is also in the process of finding a Delica to buy, drive around the country and ship back to Canada. This will result in us seeing some amazing things that we never would have been able to, saving shit loads of money sleeping in a van, and basically the most fun ever. Glad to see all of you kids at home are having great turns, that snow was certainly due. Things are great here, and I’ll continue to keep you posted Love Chaad.