Waist deep powder=AMAZING!!!

It's DEEP when you're thinking about wearing a snorkel while skiing... There's no word to describe how amazing skiing was today!!! So happy! The feeling of being "one" with your skis is incredible, feels like i know my skis as the backside of my hand. We're working very well together and i don't think i've ever been skiing so good as i was today. 

After a shower i jumped into my comfy clothes and went for an acupuncture which was well needed, i think.. Apparently the tailbone got a big bruce and the muscles surrounding it as well.. It takes i while to be able to feel the difference and i'm going back for a second treatment on Sunday so hopefully it makes my bruce on the tailbone heal faster!!!

Happy Australia Day!

It's Australia day today and since there's LOTS of aussies here in Hakuba people have been celebrating all around the village. Ashleigh made a beautiful trifle, best trifle i've ever had! Even though it also was the first one i've ever had... And i made roasted pork marinated in teriyaki, bourbon and garlic.

Here's the aussie flags i made for the bar..

Yesterday on the mountain was absolutely amazing!! I've never had so many faceshots while skiing before, at some points the snow was spraying so much in my face that i couldn't see where i was skiing!!! But my tailbone is still super sore, every little bump hurt incredibly much. Purely powder is fine but as soon as the snow is more tracked out it starts to get really painful. So tomorrow afternoon i'm going for acupuncture. Lets see how that goes...

...

Here's the first episode from the swedish guys who spent ten days in our lodge...

First episode from Japan - Six months

Tonight all of us are going for a hot-pot-dinner and quiz-night at Gakuto. 

Happiness!!!

This is just beautiful, makes me love life!! Thanks everyone, family, friends and other lovely people i've met through the years for inspiring me and support me through anything!! It's beautiful to live!

Hello from Hakuba!

Bad updating from Japan at the moment... My tailbone is still pretty sore but i've been off skiing for two days now. We're waiting for the biggest snowfall of the season that is coming in the next days so i'm hoping that i'm going to be fit for fight, ready to ski waist deep pow pow...

A beautiful picture from the hike the other day, Rob and i are the ones walking in the front..

A big loose for the world of freeskiing...

.. Sarah Burke, an amazing skier and inspiration for many of us, have moved to heaven, almost nine days after sustaining a head injury during a halfpipe training run at Park City.   

Life is dangerous and unpredictable but still worth to live to its fullest!! Make sure that you're doing something you love and that you love every single minute of it!

It's beautiful to live!

To start with, i did something very stupid yesterday which resulted in an injured tailbone. So freaking painful!!!

Anyways, so i went up with the first lift at 8am this morning and met up with Andre and Rob at the top of the gondola. We went with the chairlift as high as we could get and then started to skinning up to the very top of Happo. Then we kept on hiking for about four hours along the ridge... We picked our line and skied the most amazing snow my legs ever have skied. It was incredible and it was worth every single minute of that long hike. With a big smile on our lips we hiked up to the ridge again and skied back to the resort. A four hour long hike was probably not what my tailbone was in need of, and i can barely sit down on a chair but it doesn't matter i've had an awesome day!!! Why hiking some of you might ask yourselves... Being out in the wilderness, ski amazing snow and the only sound you can hear is you breathing is life. It doesn't get much better than that, at least not in my world!

Andre and Rob on our way along the ridge..

Beautiful views..

And then we came down here..

Japanese craziness!!!!

Yesterday i was probably watching the most crazy thing ever, Nozawa onsen fire festival. So we went to Nozawa onsen yesterday with eight of hours guests, two hours from Hakuba, to experience one of the japanese most well known fire festivals. I've never seen something like it before and it would probably never been held in a western country! So crazy and so much free sake... I thought it would be more like a "show" and that it would be more foreigners/tourists watching, but it was mostly japanese villagers and they really did their thing just like they did it hundred of years ago and it was absolutely awesome!! Best experience in Japan so far, craziness at it's best!!! Here's an explanation of what was going on... 
The Dosojin Hi-Matsuri is held every year on the 15th of January. Two groups of villagers play important parts in the festival - 42 years olds and 25 year olds. They spend three days building a big shrine, then for the main event the 42 year olds climb to the top, while the 25 year olds protect the shrine against fire attacks from the rest of the villagers. The fire festival is a big celebration for the villagers, and MUCH free sake is consumed. 

Beautiful onsen buildings in Nozawa onsen..

Steamed buns on the street..

Liana, Amy and Lucy eating steamed buns..

One of all the sake-men..

I've got so many photos.. Anyways, fantastic night and i'm soon off to bed. Tomorrow i'm meeting up with two guys and then we're off for a hike all day. 

Windy kobeya!

Last night James and i went to a korean barbecue restaurant, the best meal i've had in Japan so far.. We ordered a mixed plate and got kobeya beef, pork, chicken and seafood and dumplings. Yum!!

I know that my dad, as the meat lover he is, was pretty jealous about the kobeya beef... And i can tell you that the beef was just melting in my mouth.. Probably the best meat my mouth ever have tasted!

Tonight we're going to Nozawa onsen, about two hours from here, for one of Japans biggest fire festivals. Very excited about that!

And i forgot, we've got two new staff members!!! Two girls, Tomoko from Japan and Ashleigh from Austarlia which is my new roomie.

!0 year old's dancing at Hakuba house!

One of the guests, a 10 year old boy, wrote this little note for yesterday...

It says;

Hey everybody!

10 year old's dancing

TONIGHT!

he'll be doing...

-shuffling

-dancing

-jokes

-showing people how to shuffle!

5pm tonight!

Crash of the day...

And let me introduce you to my second new pair of skis for the season...

It's a beautiful day...

... this is taken just before 8am when the lift opened.

And this is what we look like after a couple of, intense, hours powder skiing...

The swedish team left yesterday, off to the next destination. A bit sad actually, such a nice crowd and it's been a lot of fun to have them here!! They offered 10 000 sek if i joined them for the rest of the winter.. hah  However, i wish them all the best and luck for the rest of the season!! You can follow them on their blog; Six months - Four skiers!

Skiing today was awesome, we went out of bounce to a ridge, beautiful snow! In the end of the ridge i stopped quickly without thinking.. which resulted in that James skied right into me, or onto. All of a sudden  we were both lying on the ground, laughing out loud. Tomorrow morning we're off EARLY, it's been snowing non-stop all day and is still snowing so it's probably going to be absolutely beautiful up there by tomorrow!!!!

Morphsuits..

We have a group of 10 friends staying here at the moment, this is what they were wearing last night...

Unexpected powder day!!!!

Had probably the best day on the mountain so far today!! The weather fore-cast said snow showers so we didn't expect much snow overnight... We came up and it was at least 40-50 cm of fresh snow!!!

I've just been flying over the snow today with the biggest smile on my face. And that smile stayed there for the rest of the day. James lost one of his poles in the deep snow so he had to ski with one pole for the rest of the day...

Two of our guests went back to Australia yesterday but left Hello Kitty behind...

The swedish downhill team was skiing at Happo today...

Enjoy!

Here's some of Jen's photos from new years eve...

In the gondola.

The race car, Scott and i.

A massive snowman outside of La Luna on the way down to the village.

On the mountain.

In the bar at our lodge.

Eating rice crackers.

At the Pub.