BBQ and morning Coffee

After a good ride and 5 hours painting it was time to head to the community BBQ. With the manager of spicys chefing up a feast of pretty much anything we all feasted like pigs. With draft Ichiban beer to wash things down it was a good time. Got to chat with many neighbours which is good of course too, but man do they get drunk!

After an early bed time I woke up at 6 with a good view of Happo. Decided to drink my coffee and enjoy the mild morning before driving down the road to teach for the day.

Its going to be hard driving down to teach in the middle of winter but thems the breaks. At least I have 50 days of skiing to look forward to.After coming home Hannah was a little restless so I thought id get out with here and play. We are just so busy and she is a bit stressed with nobody to play with. We gave her a 30 minute bath. The girl loves baths, she loves the water. Hannah scares me cause she loves the water too much. We had a fun time playing in the bath making funny faces.

explore explore- with kKen and Steve

Paint and Biking that was the name of the weekend. Steve the keen biker that he is was ready to go on 2 early rides. 2 early rides that saw me brake chains 2 days in a row.
The first day we would head into the Iwatake woods. Just as we were about to go in Ken-Chan and old student showed up. Showed Ken the Trails and he was stoked. Ken is one of the best skiers in Hakuba and also just an all round good kid.


After that Steve ad i Hit up the Tsugaike to Iwatake Trail. The access is to hard to fine but its a great trail. For about 100 meters there are steps. Freaking hard riding on a hard tail. That said I suck at biking.
Sunday saw us head to Sanosaka to hit the improved Downhill course there. First had to the wife to bring another bike as I snapped chain number 2 for the weekend. Steve looking into the course saying fukc that is steep.
get to
Me crossing the bridge on the way back. A good weekend ride for sure.
Met Ken-chan at our local area BBQ and he was so happy to ride with us. Ken is a great kid he even brougth a beer home from the BBq for his old man!. Now that is a good boy.

Back to painting!!!!!!

MTB with Mitch #2

After spending about an hour trying to get Mitch to wake up we finally got it on and went up Minegata for a Little Downhill action. We had my wife drive us up to save time and off we went.
Mitch knew about 5 trails up at Minegata and I only know 1 or 2. So Mitch took me to the start of a few trails to give me some beta. Mitch riding past with Goryu in the Background.Mitch up at the Lavendar farm showing me how to get to one of the harder trails up at Minegata. He says that there are stairs of rocks on that trail. Might not be ready for that but I am willing to try.

Mitch at the main trail head starting point at Minegata. You can se the trail from the parking area.Mitch flying down the trail. Mitch is such a better biker than me. My bike is way better than his but its not the bike its the rider. I love the start of this trail cause its a nice sloping single track for about 1km. You get really warmed up before the steeper Downhill sections.

At the bottom of the course I asked Mitch if he had seen Stew's house yet. He had not seen it so we rode 2 minutes out of the way to Stew's. After hanging out at Stew's for less than 2 minutes the man himself drove up, funny. Stew, his wife Yoko and daughter Nene (cutie) bought a 92 year old house and gutted it to the frame. They will rebuild the house and parts of the frame in a sort of Japanese Fusion style. I think its going to look sick! some of the Mtb bike trails actually end at his house! Can you say beer time loud enough after a sick ride? Anyways as I write the foundation is being laid.

Hannah and Papa at the Lake

Lake Aokiko has been in fine form as of late. Prefect hot weather has really warmed up the lake. The day before I was down at the lake with Mitch and thought that my little girl Hannah would love the water. Hannah loves water, she loves water so much that it is scary.
The lake is super clean but a bit rocky on the bottom. It is hard for me to carry Hannah without my water shoes so we used here blow-up sit toy. We swam and played spin the Hannah! LOL
Hannah looking at mama on the dock. The dock isnt used anymore and the person that used to use it left 3 complete (old) wind surfing kits.
There is my little girl loving life and trying to swim. I might have a National champion.
Everyone had the same idea as us as well. Jason and his girl were there., Steve and his kids for the second day in a row, Andy, Dan plus 4 friends and Timmy his better half and daughter showed up. In all I spent about an hour in the water swimming and playing great day.

Painting after a biking

Just when I thought that I put in a good ride a friend out did me 8 fold. The guy road from Nagano to Hakuba about 120 kms here and back. Missed him by about 5 minutes too as we were late getting back. The day was just too nice to camoe home on time. Got to painting the enterance or genkan in Japanese. Somehow the enterance got missed in last years big painting mission. Hiro moved all the stuff out and off we went... srot of. The shoe box was warped and wouldnt come out! about 30 minutes of thinking produced nothing other than just push it back into place.... for now!
Im actually a good painter and enjoy it. I maybe should do it instead of teaching English, lol.

Biking with Mitch

After starting some fires to burn some grass and tree branches around the house I got on the bike and rode with Mitch to Aoikiko lake. We did a mix of trails and pavement to get there. When we got there we ran into Jon having a picnic with Evergreen guests.

Mitch riding by the lake. Aoikiko is one of the nicest lakes in Japan.
Looking out towards thecheap Downhill course. Its 500 to 1000 yen a day for access and rides to the top of the course.
The lake was so warm... well at least the top meter was warm. We had about a 20 minute swim. After getting out Steve and his kids showed up just as we were talking about him.
On the way back we did a climb 1/3 up sanosaka ski resort onto a DH single track. If you climb higher you can get a sweet run down. Great little ride and swim.

Minagata revenge

This time I would not miss the course! I asked Steve to join me for a bike ride. Steve is a good mountain biker so I knew we could figure things out.

We got super lucky and met Koji-san up top who was leading to Evergreen clients on a Down hill tour. Koji pointed out the course and off we went. For me the course was a bit scary but I’m still new to this crazy Down Hill stuff. Not scary enough to never do it again cause I’m going back soon.

After a bit we grouped up and Koji showed us the original trail. The trail was more single track than down hill. My bike didn’t like the single track climbs but it loved anything with a bit of decline.

Thanks to Steve for putting up with my slow climbing bike and to Koji for showing us a sick area.