Fat Ross and Other Short Stories

Festive greetings to all you blogheads out there. Apologies for my tardy blogging of late, it has been hard finding the time to sit down and sift out some rubbish from my thinkbox but not to worry the time is now upon us....

The owner of our shoddy 'company' (NOASC or Niseko Outdoor Adventure Sports Club, apparently aka Not Officially A Ski Company) has now arrived and after much build up of people referring to him as 'fat Ross' he more than lives up to his name by looking like a giant baby with grey hair. Inexplicably he turns out to be some sort of outdoor adventure god, used to be a sponsored skier/snowboarder, best rafting guide in Hokkiadio, climbing prodigy, etc, etc. All this with the obvious handicap of having no idea to run a business.

But its not all bad, our company does give us some benefits we wouldn't have in other normal, well run companies.

1. We only work part time (welll sort of, although we appear to be constantly on call for any job no one else can be arsed to do) which gives us a lot more riding time than we'd have anywhere else. Also they take us as part of training on various backcountry trips, like on boxing day where we got taken cat skiing on a mountain right on the coast called Iwanai. We had to help out clearing some of their runs of small trees so we each got given a shankin' knife and the got cracking stabbin' up nature for a bit. But after a bit of defacing nature we got some good riding in.

2. Our company has more Japanese staff than foreigners. Now most of you probably assume this would be the case anywhere round here BUT you're forgetting Niseko is actually in Melbourne and as such most ski schools are more aussie than man.

However, this can also be a bad thing as it means you are almost constantly out of the loop on the lads 'banter' not to mention where you are supposed to be or what you are supposed to be doing. On the other hand we have a rowdy group of Japanese bro's to teach messy rudeboy Landan slang to and we get the local knowledge your we wouldn't otherwise. The other day we went out for a staff meal and drinks which was awesome. After a hotpot thingy (forgotten the name but it was made of all intestines 'n stuff, sounds rubbish, tastes awesome) we were given some small energy drinks*, which everyone swears is the best hangover cure since not drinking then its straight into a good old fashioned pub crawl complete with tequila, a 50 Cent lookalike and a healthy amount of shouting.

*p.s. they don't really work but hey I enjoy the novelty and we've taken to drinking them before we go out all the time now.

35 Cent, in all his glory. A few days later I saw him snow shoveling, wearing the same glasses...

3. Access to vans (already had more than one incident of almost crashing due to careless skidding) is a valuable bonus as is the warehouse and although is out of town is laden with prime objects to make a mini park out of. Whistler bro's will be pleased to hear that Lost Lab Japan Edition is well underway and so far has a kink, straight rail and a C rail as well as a saucy drop/kicker.

So that's that J~life at the mo, Ni-San aka older brother is arriving ce soir so he can look forward to brotherly naked baths the likes of which haven't taken place since we were toddlers. Happy days.

Paper Mario and Darrel updates

Paper Mario.

Has been seen around numerous times since my last entry but with minimal interaction. She hangs out in the bar where our other NOASC buddies work a fair bit but mostly on nights we aren't there (strange...?). On crimbos eve she was there and Ben refused to talk to her. Opting instead to go over the the girls house over the road and watch clips of Jehst freestyles on youtube, on his own. I understand his viewpoint in that basically everyone he knows was pressuring him to get some paperass when really she's so shallow she's 2-dimensional.

Yessssss, I totally made a funny.

Did you see that?

Yeah you saw.

Other papermation is that she has a taller, more boring sister who we wittily named Luigi. However I'm pretty keen to find someone to fulfill the role of Bowser, mainly so I can talk about them constantly but more on that later on when we have named the said person.

Darrel.

I kinda feel sorry for the little guy, he does mean well but he's just a massive arse. He has taken to sucking up to fat Ross loads and also keeps nominating us for more work under the illusions that we actually like work and are well keen to do as much as we can instead of y'know snowboarding 'n stuff. The two most classic Darrel moments of the last weeks have been;

a) Being caught coming out of the toilet in the girls house with Georgina's laptop, to which he said 'there's no wireless connection in there'. Phew! Threw us off the sent with that one ay D-Man?

b) Constantly saying to us that when he is teaching Asian customers to ski that the 'just don't have the strength in their legs for skiing'. Haven't quite worked out the best response for this yet so at the moment I just don't bother.

'Hello, I'd like a ski lesson please'

'I'm sorry. You're a nice guy, I like you buuut you're just too asian to learn how to ski....'

Right well I'm all out of material and it wasn't exactly A-grade to start with, so I'd like to play out with this; a video of your friends and mine, the infamous stupid dogs of Yoyogi park, Tokyo.

Enjoy,

Mukku

x

Warehouse livin'




















Bennan Bro'ing out on the pimpmoblie

Ben showing how small Japanese people are
















Bit of scenery innit?

Bof...

Yo, so was in the internetto cafe and thought I'd give it some blog time but instead spent the whole time fiddling with the font and other rubbish as no doubt you noticed immediatly. Have to say that I'm feeling a lot better about things now I'm scribeing it all in Times New Roman(tic).

Not a whole lot to report, moved into the warehouse and we now have our very own automobile to cruise for chicks in/do some irresponsible snow driving. We are currently debating names for both the warehouse and van/fucktruck. Any suggestions welcome, please send answers to:

The Warehouse
1 Warehouse Lane
Warehouseville
The Sticks
Japan

The winner gets a tiny can of unbelievably sweet coffee from a vending machine.

Oh also I've noticed a distinct lack of comments on the blog so far except from on Facebook. Priorities people, blog comments belong on the blog - people need to support this thing or it may not take off, like adult nappies.

That or no one is reading it.......Anyone?
.
.
.
.
....Hello?

Ahh screw you, I'll read it myself.

Ok byes. Remember, check out Bennan the blog for the reverse camera angles and exclusive behind the scenes footage. x

'Going down the Fox and Peanut?'

So, last night we got the sake in like a couple of big lads and decided to hit the town with some fellow work associates. Went to the same bar of Ben's last triumph of wit to try and reel in some more punters, when who should we see? None other that the infamous PAPER MARIO!!!! (see blog entry 2 for further details). Clearly this is a sign from the heavens that it was meant to be between Ben and P.M. Not only this but she is here for the whole season, plenty of time for the poetry to unfurl....however another drawback (asides from being invisible for 2 days a year) is that she's Australian - will keep you posted on developments.

Today as part of training to make us all round adventure mountain men, we have been whitewater rafting and ab sailing so we can bang on about how great these activities are to potential customers. This, however is bollocks as both these activities are undertaken in the snow at about minus 10. So after clocking in at 8 in the morning, it was a quick vomit then straight out for rafting. In the moments when I wasn't trying desperately not to get frostbite in my toes and fighting the urge to be sick, it was quite cool. I puked a further 3 times during the day (one out of a moving car) which is clearly a good thing to do on your second day of 'work'.

In other news, local army-nut Darrell decided to try and fit a wire coat hanger over his body to show off about his caving skills or some such nonsense. After a good 10 minutes of gyrating he gave up halfway through amid torrents of laughter. Let's hope there's a rematch.

That's all for now, feeling like crap which means this post is probably below even my usual sub par standards.

Shreddin' and the bits inbetween.

Bonjour, in Niseko (snowboard resort) now and internet access has been fairly patchy for the last week or so due to vague accommodation situations. Since our last sit down we left Tokyo and headed up north to Sapporo - the capital of the Hokkaido district, despite the best efforts of the Tokyo rush hour tube to see that we didn't make it (fortunately being a Laaandaaner my innate tube wisdom saw us through/had nothing to do with it).



Sapporo is a fairly modern city and for anyone who's been to North America its very similar to American cities in its structure, but it doesn't have much by way of sites so we didn't stick around very long. After our cutting comments about fellow hostelites I think the world was teaching us a lesson by putting us in a deserted and totally run down hostel where we barely saw anyone the whole time we stayed there. That said it did give Ben and me a chance to practice our Onsen skills in peace. Onsens are Japanese public baths (generally hot springs where available) where its mandatory to be naked except for a tiny towel you carry about with you, there's quite a few rules to adhere to, not to mention getting your rat out in front of a bunch of Japanese businessmen. Anyroad out, the hostel had its own 'onsen' i.e. a disgusting public bath which would be a good setting for a porno if you had about 10p to make it with. Cause we had no other patrons in the hostel this gave us free reign of the filth bath and vital practice before the main event(s) but on the down/up side it essentially boiled down to us taking a bath together, naked. Surprisingly we took to it pretty fast and now have clocked up mucho naked time together, seeing Ben's cock isn't even a challenge anymore, I'm so over it.

While we're on the topic of bathroom manner I should probably discuss the toilets here.

They rule.

Not only do you get a heated seat for those cool winter months but there are 3 settings for a good old cleanup when you're done. If you are ever feeling down all you need to do is have a poo and press one of the 3 buttons for a spray up the bum which leaves you laughing your arse off (eh, eh?) for a good 5 minutes.

So after bathing and pooing a lot we got the train from Sapporo to Niseko which was all pretty like and covered in snow, lovely. At present things are pretty vague with the job and accommodation, in that we don't really have much to do workwise right now apart from shoveling snow and putting together our accommodation, which as it happens is a warehouse about 3km out of town in the middle of nowhere. It doesn't look too bad but means we'll have to drive everywhere, which could be an issue considering how bigger a lads we are and how much we love the flappin' beerios innit? That said we will most likely just make the warehouse an edgey shoreditchesque ravebox and ship in everyone's favorite techno DJ's plus a mountain of ket, let the party come to us. bosh.

Sharing this venue/storeroom with us is another of the staff where we work who is an aussie guy by the name of Darrell who is an army survival man on the sexy side of 40. We speculated about him being a rapist before he arrived (after seeing a mugshot), then after meeting him briefly decided he was the greatest man ever, then after spending an evening with him became disillusioned due to his constant talking, tendency to knowitallism and refreshing racism. Darrell, Darrell, Darrell...

Everyone else is pretty cool, and the riding/snow is awesome with a lot of scope to have a badass crew of Japanese brosefs.

So all said and done we are still trying to find our feet a bit in the resort as well as gaining the trust of some of our Japanese co-workers so they can dispel the many mysteries surrounding our various encounters we have had which end in 'Japanese only, Japanese only!'. So far our conclusions on these places is that they are some sort of role-playing hotel, where after a hard day's work salarymen go and relax in their favorite fantasy situation, sexy school teacher, saucy interview or just getting wanked off in a bathroom. Who knows? I'll tell you who - Japanese people and they ain't talking. But not to worry Ladlock Holmes is on the case. Mystery solving AWAYYYYY.

I'll leave you with this amazing encounter - Its all going off the chain in this bar called Wild Bill's. Smashed, 18 year old aussies everywhere, so much so that girls are using the men's toilets (n.b. these are labeled 'ladies' and 'gentlemen, remember this.) Ben is queuing for the gentleman's toilets which is currently occupied by a girl. Whilst chatting to other toilet-enthusiasts a girl emerges from the ladies toilet, to which Ben says:

'Shall I use the Ladies or shall I wait and be a Gentleman about it?' {raises eyebrows}

Aussies stare at him for a bit, then resume their conversation (sans Ben).

errm...bye.

Hungry for more? Can't wait until the next exciting installment? come on down to Ben's blog for fun frolicks and sexytimes at www.mytb.org/bennan

Bennan, Blogging his tits off.

Sweet, sweet drinks machines, love of my life.


















Sensoji Temple in Tokyo.























'What's all this then? A wedding or something?' Oh wait it actually is. Should probably get out the way...

Japan 'n shit.....well, Tokyo.

OK, so here I am in Japan writing the ol' blog to sum up mine and Ben's depressing lives. Gonna try and avoid the usual travel update crap where possible and keep it strictly regular crap, now comes the part where I try and remember the story so far....

The flight over was fairly uneventful (its a plane journey, I'm sure you can picture the scene. Although I did manage to squeeze in some great Hollywood tatbusters such as Pirates of the Caribbean 3 (henceforth POC3), what the hell happens in that film? Even Keith Ricards was bollocks and not even so bad that he was funny. Anyway back to it, gone on a bit of a tangent here...) except we did sit next to this Australian come Shoreditch uber trendy girl who's life basically revolved around raving, DJing, fashion and talking about the previous 3 to people she sits next to on planes. She very kindly gave us some tips of what to do in Tokyo which became the basis for our obsession with rationalising Toyko in London terms i.e. Tokyo's Camden, Oxford st, West Acton bus stop, etc.

After arriving and getting settled we worked out our surroundings and confirmed we were in a fairly quite part of the city (Putney), which is quite a good place to stay considering how crazy some parts of the city can be. The first day or two was basically spent staring at drinks vending machines which are literally everywhere carry a host of fantastical wonders to satisfy anyone who loves trying random novelty food substances such as a drink with bits of aloe vera in or amino acid supplements or a can of coffee endorsed by Tommy Lee Jones. The Japanese vending philosophy is essentially 'why have 1 machine when you can have 8' too true, they all have options for hot or cold drinks and right now we are working on a ranking system of our favoured drinks which we hope to have ready in early 2012.

When we finally could walk past a vending machine without stopping (about day 4) we took up our other favourite pastime of looking at food ~ most restaurants have delightful plastic replicas of their dishes outside, which instantly puts you off ordering them for fear that the food is really that shiny. Food presents more of a problem because it involves human interaction which is where our bumbling Japanese skills come into their element. Despite our best efforts we are usually reduced to pointing and vague non-sensical hand gestures. Even our efforts to impress are met with indifference, most meals we try to end with a comment such as 'that was delicious' (oyshi katta) which barely even raises a look of contempt. This could be down to our sub par pronunciation which generally sounds like us saying O Shay who is probably an Irish gigolo or something. That said most people we have met are keen to help despite our blatant culture faux pas.

Erratic sleep patterns from jet lag meant our hostel room continually had people sleeping throughout the day, which turned out to be a good thing cause our conclusion is that most people you meet in hostels are massive gits who spend their whole time talking about themselves, Thailand and trying to one up anyone/thing that anyone else has to say (which is usually met with the same treatment). So asleep was how we liked our hostel comrades most. Ben decided to fall in love with a beauty who had a face like a scrunched up bit of paper and was later renamed Paper Mario, however it would've never worked due to her 2-dimensions she would've been invisible for approx 2 days a year, which no doubt would cause tension. I think Ben's main attraction to her was that she was western as he keeps saying things like 'its good to see some western girls' even though we've been gone a week. I'm starting to think he may not be joking. Other hostel greats included an Australian man who was playing this trivia game and would only ask questions he knew the answers to such as 'which country is the biggest coal exporter?' (surprise, surprise its Australia. Damn Australians! but more on that later..) .

After alienating ourselves from the rest of the hostel community it was time to hit the town. Cool parts of Tokyo are Shibuya (Soho/Covent Garden) which is awesome for shopping if you have the dollar to spend and has loads of crazy Japanese stuff like elephant trunk boxers where your wang is the trunk and this massive manga store called Mandrake. Now, fuck knows how no one has brought this to my attention before but on top of your regular Hentai (porn comic) which are very graphic and full of all sorts, there are also peado mangas ~ NO JOKE! Comics literally about having sex with kids, even some about having sex with toddlers, all illustrated!! There's a morbid fascination with the covers but we didn't have the minerals to look inside/purchase them. I'm tempted to drop a line to the Daily mail and The Sun and see if they want to have a nonce-bashing field trip to Tokyo for their readers, god knows how this stuff is legal but there you go.

So after settling on some plain old gay porn comics we headed off. There's some good nightlife to be had in Shibuya or at least so were told by our trendy raver plane companion (who once went to this club in Berlin for 16 hours - it was amazing, etc, etc) she recommended this bar which has no name and is only a tiny doorway (classic 'ditch) but failed to mention it doesn't open before 1. After hanging around there for a bit we decided to sack it off and save clubbing in Tokyo for our next trip due to subway closing times (p.s. we have the Tokyo equivalent of an oyster ~ a pasmo, such city slickers) and other balls.

We also got told to check out Tsukiji fish market, which takes place early doors 5 (Shoreditch plane girl advocated pulling an all nighter then hitting the fish market for brekkie, the manic) and is basically where all of Tokyo's fish comes from. It's wicked there's people everywhere driving round on these tiny fishmobiles and shouting. There's also some fish there but they don't say much. After wandering around like dazed idiots we got some sashimi freshly cut, which was amazing (but did give me a dicky bum later).

Another highlight was Yoyogi park on Sundays, where anyone and everyone comes to partake in their favoured leisure pastimes. Depending if you're a camp break dancer/mime artist, a fat martial arts coach or a gang of 50's greasers, everyone has their place. We pottered around for a bit laughing at people but decided unanimously that the pen were you put your tiny stupid dog to play with other tiny dogs was the out and out winner. If you like seeing sausage dogs in sweatshirts and sunglasses chasing other sausage dogs in t-shirts then this is the place for you. Stayed there for a good hour or 2.

Whew! that's some serious blogging coming at ya like a sausage dog in ray-bans. Should probably go and do something now, although in this internet cafe you get a private booth (which its acceptable to sleep/wank in), free drinks, ice cream and I have a little window to wave and hold hands with Ben in the next booth.

Be sure to tune in for the next vomit inducing instalment which includes:

Electric toilets
Stereotypes vs reality - clash of the titans
Our first bath experience, with each other (not in a gay way, well as ungay as two naked men sharing a bath can be)
Photos - if I can work out how to upload them
Cockney Japanese 101
Other stuff I've forgotten about

Till next time.

Love,

Biscuit

Blog'o'clock

So I thought it's about high time I got myself onto this 'blogosphere' I'm hearing so much about. Clearly people need to hear all the witticism's and pokes at life's foibles I'm always coming out with when no one is around so I thought I'd jot them down to enjoy at one's own leisure. Once established I'm sure the Guardian will a-come knocking with a columnist position as an unfunny Charile Brooker.

Well entry number 1 is going down in flames probably best to kick it to death now and end the suffering for everyone.