So the weather’s getting warmer, the sakura's blossoming and I’m working again to pay off my credit card bill. Time to plan the next snowboarding trip!! Not to the real moon but to some distant, mystical place of worship with the same name – yes, Mt Gassan!

I first heard of Gassan when I was investigating whether it was possible to snowboard in Japan in June. That was nearly 3 years ago, when I was planning my first trip here, and it prompted me to join SJF and make my first post! I made it to Japan but not to Gassan, and promptly forgot all about it until the other week when it was mentioned on the forum – thanks Metabo for reminding me!

Here are some “facts” that I’ve gleaned from the good ol’ www and as such, should be taken with a pinch of salt. Named after it’s moon shape (literally translated as “moon mountain”), Gassan is a small ski area in Tohoku region's Yamagata prefecture, about two hours northwest of Yamagata City. Along with neighbouring Hagurosan and Yudonosan, known collectively as Dewa Sanzan, Gassan is a sacred mountain which has been worshipped for centuries. There’s a shrine at the 1984m summit, which attracts lots of summer worshippers and hikers. Here’s a summer pic of said summit and shrine:-



Gassan is the highest of the three peaks and gets so much snow that the ski area only opens to the public when the roads leading to it are accessible, usually mid-April-ish. It then stays open for as long as that snow remains skiable, usually late-July-ish. It’s got one, kilometre-long pair lift, and a T-bar that will take you part-way up Mt. Ubagadake. A further 20 minute-hike takes you to the top of Ubagadake (1670m) where, on a good day, you’ll be treated to a 360 degree, panoramic view of the surrounding mountains and the Sea of Japan. From there you can ski/ride back to the lift or, so I’ve read, hike another hour or so along a ridge to the top of Gassan itself, where you can go off the back bowl or come back down the front bowl to the lift. I can’t yet vouch for that but if you ask me in a couple of months’ time, I might be able to confirm it because I think it’s about time I paid my respects to the mountain gods! Or at least go for a lunar wander.

Well not quite, but it’s more exotic-sounding than a night bus to Hakuba!

It's Sunday afternoon and I'm pondering where to get a Monday fix of the white stuff, when I receive an email from my Hakuba mate telling me that it's dumping down and to get myself up there PDQ! I therefore hot-foot it over to my local Teco Plaza before closing and book what I think was the last seat on the Sunday night bus to Hakuba Goryu. I love it when a plan comes together!

Although I’d taken Japanese night buses before, this was my first experience of the ski bus special. Special means different things to different people but for me, it means getting to and from Hakuba Goryu and a full day on the slopes for a total of 6,800Yen. Bearing in mind that a normal return costs about 8,500Yen and a one-day Goryu/47 ski pass costs 3,800yen (Spring rate), that’s a considerable saving. & despite having recently extolled the virtues of travelling by seishun juhachi kippu [http://www.snowjapan...e-scenic-route/ ], that’s hard to beat!! The downside is that it’s almost impossible to get a decent night’s sleep (I reckon I got a cumulative total of about 90 minutes) but that didn’t really catch up with me until the Monday night, by which time I didn’t care. Why? Because Hakuba rocked!!

This was my 3rd visit to Hakuba this season and my 2nd time to Goryu/47 in 2 weeks, and I’ve been lucky with the conditions each time. But Monday topped them all. Mainly because there was a good foot of powder everywhere and quite a bit more in the trees, but also because it was so unexpected (at least by me) for late-March. It really did feel as though winter had returned, with low temps and super-light snow. Visibility wasn’t great and it was cold and a bit windy on the top lifts, but no complaints from this satisfied punter.

Sadly, I didn’t take too many photos due to a combination of powder-lust and cold hands, but here are a few:-

Morning view from the bus not far from Hakuba - the last I saw of the sun all day!


Snow on the trees gives you an idea of the overnight snowfall


Heading up the Alps 3rd chairlift


Catching up with an old friend over at 47


Heading up the line C quad at 47



This may well turn out to be my last run-out of the season but if that’s the case, it was a happy ending! Who wants to go to Cairo anyway!

Before I go any further, I must categorically state than I am in no way, shape or form a trainspotter!! I may like the film of the same name but I’m not an anorak, at least not when it comes to trains!! With that out of the way, I am happy to say that I love travelling around Japan by train. Of course the bullet train gets all the plaudits and rightly so, but apart from the cheap shinkansen/ski jo specials, I’ve rarely been on one. What I’ve used far more often and am therefore talking about here, is the local rail network courtesy of the seishun juhachi kippu, literally translated as the youth 18 ticket. In a nutshell, this is a discount train ticket which, despite it’s name, isn’t restricted to under 18s and, unlike the JR pass, can be bought by anyone in Japan. Here are the basics:-

-It gives you five days of unlimited travel on local and rapid JR trains for 11,500Yen, which works out as 2,300Yen per day. Those days don’t have to be consecutive, so you can use it as and when it suits you, so long as it’s within the period of validity.

- It is only available three times a year, basically during school holidays, as shown below:-

Spring - March 1st to April 10th - tickets on sale from Feb 20th to March 31st
Summer - July 20th to Sept 10th - tickets on sale from July 1st to August 31st
Winter - December 10th to Jan 20th - tickets on sale from Dec 1st to Jan 10th

-It’s non-personal and therefore transferable, meaning that it can be used either by one person or be shared by up to five different people. It can also be sold.

-You can’t use the automatic gates but instead, have to pass through a manned gate or go to the office and show the ticket to the JR staff. At the beginning of each day of travel, the station staff will stamp one of the five fields on the ticket and away you go.

So what’s it like? Well it’s perfect for people who, like me, usually have time but not money!! It’s also really interesting to see and visit places that you’d miss out on if travelling by bus, express train or shinkansen. I’ve twice travelled from Hokkaido back down to Kanagawa using a seishun juhachi kippu (once in the winter, once in the summer), stopping off in places for a day or more, either to go riding or just to break up the journey. & since you’re using local, sometimes one or two carriage-trains, you’re very often the only gaikokujin in the carriage, if not the train, which makes for some interesting glances from and sometimes conversations with your fellow passengers, particularly if you’ve got a snowboard bag in tow!

For example, on my return trip from Ryuoo Ski Park in Nagano a couple of weeks ago, an old guy got on and sat down a few spaces away from me. I could feel his eyes burning a hole in the side of my head, so I turned and nodded/smiled at him. About 5 minutes later he slid down the seat and plonked himself down right next to me, before launching into a rapid-fire series of questions about my snowboard and where I’d been, then where he’d been skiing, as well as the usual where are you from-type questions. Very entertaining if slightly embarrassing because he was obviously hard of hearing so was almost shouting out his questions in, I guess, a rural accent which made it difficult for me to understand everything, and difficult for everyone else on the carriage to ignore our conversation!

So the main pros are that it’s cheap and interesting. The cons are fairly easy to work out, namely that it takes a long time to get anywhere, with frequent changes of train and platform, and sometimes long waits for your connecting train. That means you have to plan your journey carefully, with contingency plans if the connection times are tight. & sometimes you find that the railway line you want/need to travel on isn't a JR one, so you can't use the your seishun juhachi kippu and have to fork out for a ticket for that leg of your trip. Hauling a snowboard or ski bag along brings additional problems, as there often aren’t any lifts/elevators and/or escalators away from the city stations, so it takes more effort and time to do anything but hey, that’s the price we pay for our passion!

By way of recent example, it took me eight and a half hours and six changes of train to get from my home station in Kanagawa to Kamishiro in Hakuba! A full day of travel but without a seishun juhachi kippu, the same journey would have cost me about 5,000Yen by normal train (a lot more than that by shinkansen!) and about 4,500-odd by bus, so the money I saved paid for one night’s accommodation.

All in all, I’d thoroughy recommend the seishun juhachi kippu as a fun, interesting way to see the country at a reasonable price. Just don’t forget your MP3 player, a decent book to read and a good sense of humour!

One of my friends has been working the season in Hakuba, thus providing me with a great excuse to visit Goryu/47, the 2 resorts I’d missed out on when I’d stayed in Happo-One before Christmas. The fact that is was mid-March meant that I wasn’t expecting the snow to be great but the forecast looked good, so fingers and everything else were crossed as I trundled up on the train, snowboard bag and seishun juhachi kippu in hand. Sure enough, by the time I arrived at Kamishiro station, I was greeted not only by my mate but a good few inches of surprisingly light snow. & it was still falling! Apparently it had been snowing all day though the visibility on the mountain hadn’t been great, so we were eagerly looking forward to the next day!

Early doors on Tuesday and there was some unexpected sunshine on the newly-formed snow monsters in the garden. Yes, the snow gods had been very kind to us! Porridge quickly downed, we walked up to the Goryu base center and whilst waiting for the Goryu Express to open, headed over to the Iimori zone and played in and around the trees surrounding the Cosmo Four Lift. In fact, the snow was so good that we ended up staying there for longer than planned.

View from Iimori across the Hakuba valley


The by-then-moving gondolas finally tempted us away and then the Alps 1st Chair Lift took us up past the Alps 360 restaurant to the top of the resort.



Although the main runs had been groomed, there was up to a foot of powder off the sides and in the trees, so we spent the rest of the day shredding it and had such a blast that we didn’t make it over to 47 as planned. We also had lunch at a great little café on the road opposite the Base Center Escal Plaza, called Kiku Café.

Here are a few more photos from the day:-







There was no new snow overnight but we awoke on Weds to find blue skies. A not-quite-as-quick-as-the-previous-day breakfast later, we headed up the Goryu Express for a sortie of the top sections. It was beautiful up there!



The snow in the trees was still in good condition but the groomed runs were great!





Having neglected it the previous day, we decided to head over to 47 and did a top-to-bottom run on Route 1. It was a bit of a leg-burner but the snow was lovely all the way down, despite the sunshine and warmer temperatures. In fact it was the best groomed run I'd had all season. The rest of the day was spent playing both on the groomers and in the trees, where there was still some great lines to be had. It clouded over mid-afternoon but by that time my legs had had enough! Here are some more photos from the day:-









All in all, a top day, in fact, a top 2 daysl I was therefore sad to leave, especially when I had to trudge through yet more snowfall on the way to the station.

My next port of call was Ryuoo Ski Park, having won a free ticket in a SnowJapan Giveaway and unsuccessfully planned to visit almost a year ago to the day - better late than never!! Coming from Hakuba I got myself to Nagano station, where I thought I would have the choice of a train or bus connection but then found out that the latter only runs on weekends and holidays. I therefore took the Nagano Private Railway to Yudanaka, which has a shuttle bus service to the resort. There is another shuttle bus from Shinshunakano station but that’s not free, though I guess you could offset the cost of that against the extra train fare to Yudanaka! Swings and roundabouts!

The train from Nagano to Yudanaka costs 1,130Yen (+100Yen if it’s the express) and takes between 45 and 70 minutes depending on what train you get. Try to time your connection carefully because the Yudanaka shuttle bus only runs 3 times a day (09.05, 10.15 and 11.45 to the resort and 09.30, 11.00 and 16.00 back to the station). I arrived at Yudanaka at 10.49 and therefore had to wait for the 11.45 but it’s only a 20 minute or so ride to the resort, so no worries.

My original plan was to ride in the afternoon and again in the morning, thereby necessitating an overnight stay. Following Ippy’s advice, I spoke to the guy on the 2nd floor of the bus terminal building and managed to negotiate a room in a place at the resort base for 4,200Yen with no meals, which I thought was quite a good deal. I then changed into my gear and headed up the mountain – my target:- the Kiotoshi course “b” - having read the glowing reviews posted by Ippy, Dyna and Black Mountain. The resort is, as they and others have described, divided into 3 distinct sections according to ability and preference, namely the beginner-friendly bottom “Valley” section, the intermediate-to-advanced middle “Kiotoshi” section and the top, very pretty but flat “Sky Land” section.

Looking back down to the base from the bottom lift, with the neighbouring resort in the background


Looking up the mountain with snow clouds moving in


After a few leg warmers on the Valley runs, I joined the queue for the single ropeway and then headed up into the clouds, since by then the sunshine had been replaced by snow clouds.

From the top of the ropeway I decided to do a quick lap of Sky Land and yes, it’s flat. Pretty, but flat! There were some trees to be explored, but at a mellow pace and although there was quite a lot of snow around, it was very heavy, so I soon gave up on the idea and headed back to the ropeway station. More specifically, I headed straight for kiotoshi course "b" though by that time visibility was getting quite bad. That, and the fact that the main course was quite hard and chopped up, meant that I headed straight into the trees to the skier’s left, where both snow and visibility was better.



Again, I could see that Ryuoo had received a decent amount of recent snowfall but sadly the changeable Spring temperatures had left their mark and depending on elevation and aspect, the snow was either heavy, crusty or sugary. I was probably only able to put half a dozen good lines in the trees which was a crying shame because those tree sections heading down to the natural halfpipe looked great! The pipe itself looked fun but, by that time, my heart wasn't in it, so I sulked my way back to the groomers and had a few more blasts down those before deciding to call an early end to proceedings. Definitely a case of what might have been and hopefully will be, when I return there next season! So thanks SJ and Ryuoo Ski Park for the opportunity to check out this resort!!
I'll be back for those trees!!

So after a month off, I finally made my return to the slopes on Saturday. Not to Fukushima, as originally planned (I left it too late to book a nightbus to Adatara Kogen - sorry Metabo!)), but to Niigata and more specifically, Muikamachi Hakkaisan in Minamiuonuma, courtesy of a free ticket in the SnowJapan Giveaways!

With rain forecast, I decided to travel up on Friday afternoon in order to give myself the best chance of some decent, ie early morning conditions. With my trusty seishun juhachi kippu in hand, I set off for Echigo-Yuzawa after a hasty lunch. It never ceases to amaze me how much snow Niigata gets. I know they’ve had a bumper season but the train was dwarfed by some of the snow banks. I’m also always impressed by the number of ski resorts you can see from, well, basically Minakami onwards. They should rename this part of the Joetsu line “Paradise Alley” or something!

"Paradise Alley"


I made it up to Echigo-Yuzawa by dinnertime (2 changes and 4 hours, 3 mins from Shibuya!) and took a taxi down to Kenkou Land, the onsen place where you can stay overnight for 2,200Yen. I like it here, though I did wake up in the middle of the Yuzawa round of the national snoring championships and found that I had been boxed in by some genuine title contenders!

The Kenkou Land sleeping area at about 6.30am - very cosy (and noisy)!


If you do stay here, decent earplugs are therefore a must and don’t skimp – you need the ones that make you feel as though you’re swimming underwater - regretably my MP3 earphones didn’t cut the mustard! & one other thing, if you do get a taxi, get it from the East Exit of Echigo-Yuzawa eki as it’s a couple of vending machine drinks cheaper than the West Exit!

Following Man_In_Japan’s travel advice - http://www.snowjapan...a-2012-review/� - I took the 08.00 train from Echigo-Yuzawa. Being a Saturday, the station was teeming with excited snowboarders and skiers, many of whom seemed to get on my train but then get off at Joetsu International Skiing Ground. This was very unnerving and made me question whether I was going to the right place but I needn’t have worried, because when we arrived at Muikamachi station a few stops later, I was followed out of the East Exit by a handful of other boarders/skiers and onto the waiting 08.30 bus. Surprisingly, it wasn’t full and 24 minutes and 510Yen later (410Yen fare + 100Yen for snowboard/skis), we arrived at Muikamachi Hakkaisan ski jo.



Although it was a Saturday and the car park was quite full, the base area wasn’t that busy which I relieved about as it meant I could actually use the tiny changing area, which would have been impossible earlier on. I then exchanged my voucher for a ticket and before I knew it, was riding up the bottom pair lift.



This being my first, post-op run-out I was a little nervous but after strapping in, those fears were soon forgotten as I carved my way down to the ropeway station. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” and it was certainly great to be back on a board again! In fact, I was on such a high that I was completely unphased by the long queue for the ropeway and just managed to squeeze in before the doors closed.



Going up the ropeway I could see the infamous moguls but was also surprised by how steep some of the slopes looked. I therefore decided to turn right out of the ropeway station and head down the tight and twisty “Rakuraku” course, which is basically a series of hairpin bends/switchbacks that wiggle down the skier’s left of the resort. Despite promising myself to take it easy, I couldn’t resist popping off the sides and making my own, zig-zagging way down to the top pair lift! The snow actually wasn’t too bad – up to 10cms of fresh though a little heavy but hey, no complaints from me as I was having a ball despite the poor visibility, as shown in the view below from the top pair lift.



I did Rakuraku again then headed over to the skier’s left of the ropeway and down the “Champion” course. The run was quite steep but still being early, not too cut up, and a good test for my groin repair!



However, I liked the look of the trees to the skier’s right of Champion so headed back up the top pair lift for another run and a closer look. Sure enough, there was plenty of untracked snow in between the trees, and though the area was signed as off limits, it wasn’t roped off, so I went and had a little play in there.







After a quick pit/pic stop at the Downhill restaurant, I decided to check out the area under the ropeway that I’d seen a single skier run through. I therefore guessed that this was also out of bounds but apart from the ropeway towers and lift stanchions being cordoned off, it looked ok and there was nothing to stop you from going in there…so I did! & it was great! As the top of the “Expert” course was closed, I had to do a couple of bends of Rakuraku, then dive into the trees off to the right of the mogul field and swoop down the gully under the ropeway, before popping out on the other side and heading down for the pair lift ride back up. A sweet little run but after 3 or 4 goes I thought I might be pushing my luck with ski patrol and headed back over to Champion again. Incidentally, I’d read that ski patrol were strict here but the poor visibility must have kept me under the radar.

Looking back up the gulley under the ropeway.


I also though I’d better explore the rest of the resort but as soon as you went lower than the Downhill restaurant things started to get very heavy-going, literally! I went down the “Challenge” course and the untracked pow to the sides was glue-like, so I quickly got back into the middle of the groomer and straightlined it to the bottom. At this point my day came to a premature end because I lost my gloves! I took them off for a breather and somewhere in between going to the toilet and having a browse though the base camp shop, I managed to drop or put them down somewhere. I retraced my route and asked at all the normal places but no joy, so I took that as a sign and decided to call it a day. This meant that I didn’t get to check out the course to the far skier’s right of the resort though I reckon the snow would have been heavy over there as well, being lower down than the top section I’d been playing in all morning.

So the loss of my gloves excepted, I had a great time at Hakkaisan. Granted, it was my first time out for a month, so I probably would have been stoked to ride anywhere but despite the patchy conditions, I enjoyed playing in the trees and powder stashes in the top section. & although visibility wasn’t great (though, typically, it had started to clear up by the time I left), you could see that there are some nice views to be had on a clear day, as Muika’s photos will testify - http://www.snowjapan...h-january-2012/ -

So thanks SJ and Prince Snow Resorts for a good day out!!

They say you never forget your first love. So here’s a picture of mine…



Well that’s not strictly true as this isn’t my first BMX, but it is my current ride - an ’87 Haro Group 1 that I sourced and had shipped over from the States a few months ago.

So what I am doing waffling on about bikes instead of snow? Well it was a lovely, dare I say, Spring-like day down in Kanagawa today, so I decided to test my post-op fitness by going for a spin on the Haro. Nothing too gnarly, just an hour or so cruising the mean streets of Miyazakidai, but certainly the most exercise I’ve done in 24 days. It hurt a bit when standing to pedal up the, thankfully, small number of hills but otherwise no problems. & it was great to get back in the saddle, though now I’m champing at the bit to go riding again. On that note, am hoping to hit Fukushima next week!! Bring it on!!!

I’m planning to resurrect my snowboarding season in March, a month before I restart work. With dwindling finances (no work = no money), I’m going to buy a seishun juhachi kippu (the cheap, local trains-only train ticket) and make some mid-week forays to the following prefectures:-

1. Nagano. One of my mates is now conveniently working a few minutes’ walk from the Goryu lifts, so having checked out Happo-one over Christmas, I’m going to visit him and ride Goryu/Hakuba 47. I‘ve also won a Ryuoo Ski Park ticket (thanks SJ!) so will be heading over there as well.

2. Fukushima. As I missed out on the SJ gathering at Alts and have never been to that neck of the woods, I really want to check out one or two of the Fukushima resorts, possibly Alts or maybe Grandeco and/or Adatara Kogen, hopefully meeting up with Metabo along the way.

3. Niigata. If the snow’s good, I’d like to go back to Kagura and also check out Naeba but, thanks largely to Muika, I now have to visit Mt Granview and Ishiuchi Hanaoka!! With any luck the sun will come out and I can meet the internationally-famed photographer himself!

So those are my rough 'n' ready plans, all subject to monetary and medical maladies of course!

To commemorate the 2 week anniversary of my hernia op, here’s a double blog entry!

I guess most of us have, at some stage, struggled to speak another language, either at school (in my case, 6 years of French lessons, with a year each of German and Latin thrown in for good measure) or equally embarrassing attempts to communicate with the locals on foreign travels. When I lived in Hungary and South Korea, I failed to muster more than a few survival words and phrases in either langauge. Before coming to Japan, the only Japanese words I knew were those that have become international so, faced with that harsh fact that I would need more words than sushi, bonzai, karate, kamikaze, ninja, samurai, manga and geisha to survive, I decided to make a concerted effort to learn nihongo!I

I would like to have studied Japanese full-time but a lack of time, money and active brain cells has put paid to that notion. I’ve therefore spent the last 2 and a half years trying to learn the lingo using a variety of methods ranging from osmosis, reading textbooks, taking private lessons, watching tv, struggling with the JLPT and talking with shop staff and random strangers. Now, with a few, unplanned-for, free weeks on my hands, I’ve taken up the mantle again and have been attending the volunteer classes at my local library, as well as studying at home and in my local cafes. I'm also tempted to try some language exchanges. Although it often feels as though I’m taking 1 step forward and 2 steps back, I realise that I am slowly making progress. Don’t get me wrong, I reckon a 4 year old can still hold a better and certainly more interesting conversation than me, but things are gradually sinking in - sukoshi zutsu! Just don’t ask me to read anything with kanji in it!

In between studying Japanese, I’ve also been spending far too much time surfing the net including, of course, dropping into the SJ forums every now and again. Yesterday in the “New advances in the ski industry!” post [ http://www.snowjapan...-snow-industry/ ] I talked about my experience using nutcrackers. Here’s some more info:-

I was lucky enough to spend a month snowboarding in New Zealand in the summer 2009. Having previously ridden at The Remarkables down in Queenstown, I was keen to try out some other places and that inevitably led me to consider New Zealand’s club fields. These are small ski areas that were originally started and run by locals for locals, and are still, i think, run by volunteers on a little or no profit basis. They are not your typical ski resort and have no chairlifts or groomed runs.

Quite a few of them use nutcrackers, as is the case with Temple Basin, where I stayed for a couple of nights. The ski area is accessed by an hour or so hike up from the main road, with your gear being sent up seperately on a lift to a lodge where you can stay overnight. So what are nutcrackers? Here are a couple of pix:-





& here are my easy-to-follow instructions for using a nutcracker:-

Step 1 - Pray!
Step 2 - Make sure no-one's watching you!
Step 3 - Pray again!
Step 4 - Having previously tied the red belt around your waist, stand (on your board or skis) next to the moving rope and open up your nutcracker. Then flick it over the rope, hopefully grabbing it (with the same hand) as it comes back under the rope! At the same time grab the rope with your other hand and hopefully you're now underway!!! I did say hopefully, didn't I?
Step 5 - Lean back, let the belt take the strain of your weight and breathe a sigh of relief!
Step 6 - Don't relax too much because if you loosen your grip on the nutcracker, it will come off the rope and you will fall over!
Step 7 - Get ready for the fast-approaching pulley wheel;
Step 8 - As you reach the pulley wheel, take your (non-nutcracker-holding) hand off the rope (otherwise it will go through the pulley wheel!) and hold tight as the nutcracker runs through the wheel! NB Failure to do this properly will pull the rope off the pulley wheel.
Step 9 - Breathe deeply before the next pulley wheel, then repeat step 8 until you reach the top of the rope tow;
Step 10 - Disembark by relaxing your grip on the nutcracker and falling over!

The rope tow I used was on my toe-side so, having a regular stance, i was facing the rope. I wimped out of trying the backside-facing tow on another run as this would have been absolute carnage! Compared to nutcrackers, T-bars are a walk in the park!

As I write this, I now realise that nihongo and nutcrackers share more than the same first letter. They are both challenging! First attempts to use them invariably lead to embarrassment. They are therefore humbling. They are also bloody frustrating!! But when all's said and done, they do open up new opportunities, so are rewarding and worth persevering with. On that happy note, I'm off to study the potential form!

Had my hernia op on Tuesday afternoon.

This is not a “blood and guts” review but my experience of Japanese hospitals in case anyone should find themselves in the same boat. First off, I hate hospitals! Nothing personal against anyone who works in one because they do a great job, but I simply hate going to a doctor, let alone a hospital. I therefore have to have something pretty serious to go to either! My only previous experience of the Japanese medical system was the treatment I received in Furano 2 winters ago for a fracture of the right radius bone.

I’m part of the Japanese health insurance system which, for those who don't know, means that I pay a monthly amount (calculated by reference to my wages, I think) for which I receive a 70% discount for treatment received, the same as a Japanese patient. So that’s the theory. The trouble is, of course, the language barrier that presents itself to someone, like me, who isn’t a proficient Japanese-speaker. I can get by in basic, everyday situations but a medical scenario is a different kettle of sushi! So the first piece of advice I can give anyone is find an English-speaking doctor! Even if you have a Japanese partner, invariably things get lost in translation plus I always like to hear things straight from the horse’s mouth, particularly if that horse is going to cut me open!

So, after the initial diagnosis by a local doctor, I therefore searched online for an English-speaking surgeon. I actually found an English-speaking hernia specialist up in Sapporo, who I was tempted to see (having already had a flight booked to Hokkaido) but was then recommended to see a surgeon in nearby Jiyugaoka, who immediately gave me confidence by explaining everything to me in a far higher standard of English than any of my students. So I decided to forego my flight and stay in Kanagawa.

The 3 hospital visits I’ve had so far have, on the whole, been fine. The nursing staff have been great and have tried to speak English (or at least get someone else to translate) if my Japanese has been inadequate. & the sight of 3 of them trying to manhandle me onto a trolley after I felt dizzy giving blood must have been comical!! The one problem I’ve had has been with the paperwork and payment, in that everything is written in Japanese, so I’ve generally no idea what I’m signing for or paying for. I’d read about the escalating cost of hospital admissions so asked for a quote, but the figure I was given has already been surpassed without any explanation, or explanation that I've understood. Part of me wants to query this but I don’t want to create any bad feeling with the hospital staff, so I’m going to let it go as long as I don’t have to pay too much more on my return visit next week. That was also part of the reason why I chose an early discharge myself yesterday, when I could probably have done with staying in hospital for another day.

So, paperwork and financial concerns aside (which reflect my inadequacies rather than anything else), my experience of Japanese hospitals has been a positive one. If anyone needs an English-speaking surgeon in Kanagawa (or Sapporo, for that matter), please feel free to ask for details. In the meantime, I'm now counting down the days 'til I can get back on a board!

Saturday morning’s earthquakes in Yamanashi and subsequent comments in the SJ forums got me thinking about the reality of living in a country which lies smack-bang in the middle of the “Pacific Ring of Fire” or as Wikipedia describes it, “in a zone of extreme crustal instability”.

Before coming to Japan I’d never experienced an earthquake so was quite excited when one woke me up a couple of years ago. When I told my students how I felt they gave me surprised looks and accompanying “Ehhh!” exclamations, which I laughed off at the time. Of course I’d seen the tv pictures of the terrific damage that earthquakes can do, but I never really thought that I might see those scenes here, despite it having happened previously, most notably near Kobe in 1995. I guess that made the events of March 11th all the more shocking. I was driving back from Kamui Ski Links in Hokkaido at the time, so didn’t feel the big one but did feel the aftershocks later on. Watching tv that night then confirmed the full horror of what had happened.

Returning to Kanagawa at the beginning of April I experienced the continuing aftershocks and electricity-saving measures, though had undoubtedly missed the worst of both. I was then lucky enough to join a group of volunteers on a trip to Fukushima in June, where we were assigned to clear out some seaside houses that had been gutted by the tsunami. Seeing the damage firsthand really brought home the reality of what happened.

So, as the anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake approaches, I count myself very lucky that I and those around me came through it unscathed, when so many others weren't so fortunate. & has it changed the way I feel about living here? No, I still love the country and hope to stay here for the foreseeable future. Has it changed the way I feel about earthquakes? Too bloody right it has, as I was reminded on Saturday morning.