Today Stephen is on afternoon shift so he doesn’t start till 3:30pm, so we decided to get our boards out and go for our first ride. The mountain is not fully open yet, but there are a couple of lifts running, so we caught the bus up to Hirafu to hit the snow. I was nervous, but it was actually really fun! Visibility was next to none once we got to the top, so foggy! But it cleared after we did our first run.We both bought new jackets and helmets yesterday, and I also got some really good anon goggles, so it felt good to be wearing proper gear.

At the end of last season in Australia, during our last day trip up to Falls Creek, I had just started to get the hang of linking turns, going from my toe edge to heel edge. I’m pleased to say that I picked up where I left off!! I’m getting a little bit faster, but still not so good at navigating uneven terrain or riding gracefully down steeper slopes. We only did a couple of runs today, just a little taste tester, and then headed back down the mountain into town, but it was definitely a fun first ride.

M.

We had Induction training from 9-5pm today and all I could think about for the last 3 hours of the training was sushi! I really wanted to try proper sushi in Japan to compare it to what I’ve tasted in Australia. So after training we made our way to Yoteimaru, a ‘conveyor belt’ sushi restaurant. We were the only foreigners in there and it was full of Japanese people; good sign. We hung up our coats and sat down. There was so much to choose from, and quite a few things I hadn’t seen or tried before. I got adventurous and tried a few different raw fish sashimi’s, some seaweed wrapped ones, and also ordered some fried shrimp and gyoza. It was all delicious and the ginger was amazing!! I even ate wasabi.

The chefs stand in the middle and prepare the bite size pieces in front of you, which I found really cool

All in all, a great first sushi train experience in Japan.

M.

We’re here! Its been a while since our last post because things have been pretty full on and our body clocks are still totally messed up!

We left Houston on Sunday at midnight, and then transited through Beijing and arrived into Sapporo, Japan around 1pm on Tuesday! We totally lost Monday somewhere over the top of the world haha. Arriving into Sapporo was exciting, but we were so tired and over custom officers and passport control and taking shoes off and laptops out of bags and blah blah blah. We just wanted to eat something and sleep!! But instead we had to work out what train we needed to catch to get to Kutchan, our soon to be home for the next few months.

We finally worked out the train situation, bought tickets and went down to the platform to wait. We had our long snowboard bag, a suitcase each, and hand luggage, so it was quite challenging getting on the public train. Safe to say we got a few strange looks, and we think an old man took photos of us on his flip phone (!!). We think because our board bag was half in front of a seat, but there was nothing we could do about it so we turned our heads and took in the breathtaking snowy scenery zooming past our windows.

By 4:30pm the sun was completely down and it was pitch black. After an hour and a bit on the train we got to Otaru station where we had to grab all our gear and change trains. We just made it, but standing room only! So the next hour was long and arduous to say the least. But we did it!!

Ben, from SkiJapan (our employers), met us at the train station and took us to our accommodation – a little apartment in downtown Kutchan. It’s super cute (aka tiny), and Stephen and I are sharing a single bed because we don’t want to sleep separately and we can’t push our beds together because there are poles in the middle of our room!! haha.

There is a supermarket across the road, so we got some food, ate it, had a shower and went to bed – we were both absolutely spent!! Despite being extremely exhausted I had the shittest sleep, waking every hour or so and then not being able to go back to sleep from 4am onwards. Jet lag is a bitch.

The very next morning, Wednesday, we both had to catch the bus into Hirafu to meet our bosses and start training. That day is a bit of a blur now, and we got home Wednesday night not wanting to eat anything and went straight to bed. Thursday was much the same – crappy sleep, awake from 3am, and then training all day, and Stephen actually started work on Wednesday, so he was straight into it!

But, I’m pleased to write, that we both had a much better sleep last night and woke up today feeling much more ourselves (yay!!). It’s time for the adventure to begin!

(We’ve been so busy and zombie like that we haven’t really taken many photos yet, but here are a few. It’s about 0 degrees celsius during the day, we’ve had snow and rain since we got here, and it’s all pretty amazing).

M & S.

Lots of today was spent sitting in the RV in traffic, driving from New Orleans to Breaux Bridge (6 miles from Lafayette). A friendly American man staying the the French Quarter RV park suggested to Martin that we make our way to Pochés RV fish-n-park. And he also insisted that we eat at the Pochés Market & Restaurant and get the crawfish étouffée and the chicken and sausage gumbo. So guess what? That’s what we did, and it’s delightful. We parked up next to one of 5 small lakes, and we arrived just as the sun was going down.

Then we headed out for dinner and tried everything they had on the menu: crawfish étouffée, fried shrimp, crumbed catfish, chicken and sausage gumbo (which was MUCH nicer than the seafood one we tried in New Orleans), and sides of coleslaw, potato salad mash, and fries. It was actually pretty good. So much fried food though! I’m definitely going to cook up some veggies for our Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow night.

M.

Martin appointed me (M) chief trip organiser, so I decided today we would venture out of the French Quarter and see some more of what New Orleans has to offer. We walked to Canal Street and caught the trolley (tram) west to the Garden District. Here we visited Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, the oldest of the seven municipal, city-operated cemeteries in New Orleans. It is unique in that it is non-segregated, non-denominational and has immigrants from over 25 different countries and natives of 26 states. It is also quite unique to us as all of the graves are actually tombs above the ground. This is because the water table in New Orleans is so high. Here are some photos so you can get the idea.

After the cemetery Stephen and I went to visit Christ Church Cathedral. It was the first non-Roman Catholic church founded in the entire Louisiana area in 1803, and is still a fully functioning and practicing church today. We went inside to take a look around and even met the priest, whose name as also Steven. We went into the chapel first, which was exquisite. We then made our way into the the main congregational area and it was beautiful. The wooden ceiling was so high and grand. There were enormous stained glass windows depicting Christ in different settings. There was also a pipe organ that was so huge we could only imagine the sound that would come out of it. I think the most fascinating thing for me was how the church seems so ancient and is so well maintained, and that people still worship there to this day.

These pictures really don’t do it justice.

Next we travelled by taxi to the Audubon Zoo. I’m not generally a fan of zoos, however it was actually my idea to go here (M). This is because the zoo covers 58 acres and is located in a section of Audubon Park in uptown New Orleans named in honour of artist and naturalist John James Audubon. The zoo prides itself on it’s enclosures and conservation efforts. Some of the exhibits we really enjoyed were the gorillas (the silver back was amazing), the bird aviary, and the Louisiana swamp exhibit. This exhibit was primarily outdoors on a boardwalk through swamp. It housed many samples of animals native to Southern Louisiana: black bears, racoons, otters, nutria, cottonmouth and copperhead snakes, a few different birds, and some alligators. I’m not sure whether it’s school holidays, or if children are on break for upcoming Thanksgiving, or if Tuesday’s kids enter for free, but there were kids EVERYWHERE! It was insane. We may have even been the only people in the entire zoo unaccompanied by children.

We caught a local bus back into the French Quarter and made our way back to the RV park. All of us were pooped after walking around all day in the sun – wish I wore my fitbit so I could tell you how many kilometres we walked today! – so we had grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner in the RV and I’m not writing this in bed and it’s only 9:30pm. Stay tuned for more adventures tomorrow.

M.

Today we left sunny Houston, said goodbye to the family and the busy traffic and hit the open road in the RV. We’re on our way to New Orleans!

We stopped in Galveston for a little break. A nice seaside town with a theme park on the jetty – historic Pleasure Pier! We had lunch at Bubba Gump shrimp restaurant, which was an experience. Yummy prawns and fish and a myriad of other things. Then it was back in the beast and on the road again.

We’ve now pulled into the Port Arthur Walmart carpark (the store is open 24/7 and sells everything you could possibly imagine!). We’re allowed to park here overnight, which is cool. And we’ll get back on the road first thing in the morning.

Here’s some happy snaps from today.

M.