Stormriders Revenge

- Never Stop Dreaming -

The past weekend was quite extraordinary I must say. Friday nite was a little harmless gathering of some friends and their friends (Jacky and Peter) who were here in Japan for holidays. Jacky was a cool lady whom I hit off pretty well and even made a pact about going to Antartica in 2 years time along with Grant as we all share the same passion of that God forsaken ice continent.

Along with Eric and Ashley, Grant and Nigel, Jacky and Peter, we had our dinner at Genki Sushi which was I personally think tasted bad (fish bones were present in their sushi...) but nonetheless, the rest simply loved it. Upon leaving, had a cute high school girl who served us in the sushi store coming out and talking to us and the reason, she just wanted to speak English! My my how weird was that...alrite moving on. Headed to Kuroshishi and had the second round of partying which I had skipped booze altogether for the sake of my sweet Starlet which never leaves me wherever I go. Adam and Shino came along and a new face Ben was there too. Some other Japanese that Grant and I had partied earlier was there and so the party grew bigger and noisier and finally things went outta control with a cute Japanese dude who was 26 hitting on Jacky who was 46 because she was blonde and had blue eyes. Grant and Peter were dancing and talking about their life stories (yeah rite...), Ben who was from England and had lived in Singapore for 6 years was talking in Singlish spewing words like "shiok lah" "cannot meh" and the rest, God knows what they were doing.

In the midst of all these unglamourous partying, alcohol intoxication and gibberish language, a trip up to Shiga Kogen was actually planned on Friday nite, well Saturday morning literally as it was already 3am. So the itinerary was to head up to Shiga and catch the snow monkeys bathing in the onsen and then do a half day of snowboarding at Nozawa Onsen, stay for the nite and go for a full second day of snowboarding on Sunday. Everything looks good, backup plans in placed and then it's back to our sleeping dens.

I got everything set before I go to bed on Friday nite and so when I woke up on Sat morning, I was surprised to notice the bright sun peering into my room. Hmmm I was supposed to wake up at 0530 hours to the sound of the alarm ringing but it didn't actually rang and it was already 0705 hours. I knew I was late and couldn't make it for the trip, next thing I knew, the phone was set to silent and I went back to sleep. Woke up at 1750 hours when the alarm rang. Blasted alarm...it was actually set at 1200 hours late. By this time the scorching sun was replaced by a ravaging blizzard tearing up the lands. Whoooo...I thought and I got myself prepared to go out but not sure where when Adam invited me to a GEOS party at Eric's place. Driving there took me 20 minutes longer than usual as I had to carefully navigate through the almost impossible blizzard.

So before leaving, another snowboarding trip was in place for Sunday with Eric and the gang going up to Nozawa Onsen. I was delighted as this could salvage my guilt for missing out on Saturday.

Sunday, 24th Feb, the alarm clock went off as planned, no screw ups and I was cruising in the blizzard from the day before. It was still bad, road conditions were ridiculous and visibility was peeking at a mere 5%. Upon arrival at the designated point of contact, I learned that the trip was actually cancelled due to bad weather. I was not convinced so I drove back home to grab the free lift ticket to Asama2000 to try my luck.

Badly trying to curb the erupting snowboarding enthusiasm in me, I drove in the insane blizzard up the windy mountain pass up Asama only to find that my luck ran out when I got to the top. The weather condition was so bad, the lifts were closed and all winter activities were stopped. Everyone simply stayed in the ski lodge to escape the blizzard of doom. Snow was the size of marbles and wind was so strong they would knock you over. Well, at least for me, I am loving every second of it.

So without much luck and after hours of waiting, I decided to decend and get back to town. With the mountain passes covered in snow and cars were creeping at snail pace, I decided to try my luck once more. DRIFTING! Yeap, in a 4WD full auto car...haha it's almost as close as you can get to the real thing. Acceleration upon entering corners and hard over steering would send the car's tail sliding out and counter steering at the precise moment would put the car back on tracks. Arcade, games and simulation, back in the basement for me as this had to be the closest drifing experience to date. All the way down from the top on that mountain pass was simply insane but carefully done until the last 30% of the course where the speed demon took over my sanity. Lost it and the car bump into a snow pile by the corners at 30km/h and I was stuck.

Cars that I had overtook were passing me scrawled with sinister smiles and "Serves you right!" written all over those smiles. Yeah I know it sucks have the fun ended abruptly but in the end, some kind souls who had no idea of my insane stint stopped and we dug my precious Starlet out. After like 20 minutes, the car was freed and once again I continued that sick stunt down and eventually completed my downhill rally training. Boy I would love to do that again anytime but it would be recommended to bring a co-driver and spades just in case. Seems like the "feel" of rally driving was pretty intense...

Alrite in the evening when I got back home, there was so much snow outside my house that I decided to complete my "snow throne" project that was halted for a while. It looks great I must say because even the neighbours were impressed by it and passing cars stop just to catch a glimpse of it.