A new Feature, "Gala Experience", has been put online.

http://www.snowjapan.com/e/features/features-gala-experience.html

"Lawrence Ly has just spent this last winter season working at the GALA Yuzawa snow resort in Yuzawa town, Niigata Prefecture. We spoke to him to find out more about his experience working at a Japanese ski resort."

http://www.snowjapan.com/e/features/features-gala-experience.html

Please note that the views expressed in any Features on SnowJapan are not necessarily those of SnowJapan.

Discuss it here...

good for him, man. Not many people get the opportunity to work at resorts in Japan, mainly because of the language thing. It's good to see snowboard bums seeking something more than just snow and beer... like the resorties back home tend to be characterized.

I suppose with more people being able to speak Japanese it's going to be more and more difficult for people to get jobs if they can't.

Interesting to read of this guys experiences. Seems he enjoyed it a fair bit. Like the sound of their lunch breaks!!

Yes they sound far better than the measly ones I get.

hi guys,
I'm the guy that helped write that article
Season is pretty much over.
Just doing inventory work and preparing Rental for next year.
I'm still in Japan till the 15th May.
And I would like to thank the editor of SnowJapan for the opportunity to post my experience at Gala.
Thanks again guys.

Hi chopobo, thanks for sharing the experience.

awesome article. interesting to get a peak inside the life of the folks behind the counter. I wish I could have done something like that when I was younger, instead I was wasting my time surfing in Hawaii...oh well....

Good to read experiences like that, sounds like you had a good time there chopobo.

What did the staff do on all those days this season that Gala didn't open due to (existant or non-existant) winds? There must have been quite a number of those, I remember a fair few myself from the now reports.

Hey chocobo - how many gaijin where there working at Gala?

invisibleman - if it was a day off we would get a 3 park resort life pass and go to the other ski resorts like Yuzawa Kogen or Ishiuchimaruyama. But yeah those windy days sucked. Even when there was no wind at all that day they would close the resort. I guess management was scared.

machine - i recall only 3 gaijin. Me, my friend Nancy and another girl from Korea that worked at Information. There was also this other gaijin who worked for a short while as snowboard instructor but left in January or something.

Curious. If there was no wind, how did they get to decide to close - it was in the forecast or something??

The big question is - did you have a "Gala time"?

Cheers for sharing your experiences!

Sounds like those days off were a lot of fun... you must have got a fair bit of snowboarding in for the season - how good did you get?

klingon - yeah they were wind forecasts, there is like a weather monitoring station up on the mountain

nagoid - I started at Gala as a complete snowboard noob. By the end I was getting into ground tricks and park jumps etc.

It is pretty much spring here in Yuzawa. Most of the snow is gone. Few of the staff went up to the ski resort via car the other day through IshiUchiMaruYama and had a last snowboarding trip. This was when the resort was closed so no body up there.

Is there no road up directly to gala or do you have to drive up there via Ishiuchi? I like discovering all those small winding roads.

there is one that goes directly but I don't think it is safe for cars. Probably for snow mobiles, tractors etc

Interesting to hear your story chopobo, thanks. Must be good to work at a resort at your time in life and get all that boarding in while you're at it.