Goodbye snow, hello backpain, hermit crabs and hermit crabs with backpain.

Was gonna get my blog on massive stylee but instead decided to flap around trying to sort out places to live and potential jobs. Predictably I achieved nothing in either field.

Anyho the haps is that we've ditched the snow and aussies and headed daawn saaath to the Okinawa island chain to catch some awesome rays. Full update will come soon but mostly we've been, complaining about back pain from camping, talking in a Mura voice, creating elaborate hermit crab olympics and err well that's it....OR IS IT????

Yes, yes it is.

..Oh wait no its not, found this under the sofa, next to the crab in jodhpurs.



Well the snow kind of petered out in good old Niseko. From the non stop powder days of Jan and Feb, March brought barely any new snow and so apathy started to set in, especially cause the parks weren't that interesting or well looked after. So after much hassle with trying to ship snowboard bags back to the UK {you can't buy the way, unless your willing to pay the price of a flight for shipping. You may as well buy a one way ticket for Mr Bagley of Baggington and dress you bag in a shirt and tie and stick him on the plane. At least he gets a meal and a movie that way but make sure you get the extra legroom seats cause he isn't that flexible, being a bag and all.} we set off on our merry way to Okinawa off to the southwest of Japan, which promised tropical climates and sandy beaches. We arrived in Naha, Okinawa's capital city and the only available beach has a massive flyover in front of it. The city was quite cool but we didn't stay too long there and soon invested in a ferry 400km south to Ishigaki which is a bit less hectic. However, not before I swooped up a saucy hairkatto for the tropical island look, dropping into my local 24hr salon I was treating to various ice coffees and massages from a crack team of hair management specialists, while the J-Cut the shit out of my hair. Unfortunately no photo evidence but there were points, flicks and swoops as far as the eye could see, I've never been so aerodynamic. The other bonus of being down here is that due to American influence, A&W root beer is in fruitful supply down here. Ben and I have been suppin' our little hearts out drinking 4 root beers in a row, then having and root beer comedown for the rest of the day.

The ferry down south and ended up with us getting smashed. Ben and Nick (another Nick, not me. Although I could start writing in the 3rd person...hmm he thought, thoughtfully), thoroughly sun burnt from a day beating small children at football on flyover beach ended up shirtless. We decided to raid the ferries booze supply and ended up with Ben climbing a tower thing in the middle of the ferry, falling off and smashing his shoulder. Cultural ambassadors.














When we got to Ishigaki, we've mostly been camping on the beach involving some terrible nights of sleeping and crippling backpain, followed by days of hosting crab olympics which, involves putting hermit crabs through rigorous Kypton Factor style competitions but it usually falls apart at the arithmetic part. In fact, there's supposed to be these massive land crabs which look several nightmares rolled into a shifty sideways beast, unfortunately no sightings as yet (I suspect the only people to see them are probably dead). Did see a post to stop littering showing some of the biglad crabs using buckets as houses, brilliant not sure why that makes you stop littering...

When backpain becomes critical, we've broken up camping with some nights in hostels. The first being run by a nice but intrusive old couple who insisted we call them Granny and Grandpa, Granny was pretty full on and definitely made a pass at Ben on at least one occasion. So after being scared off by Granny we stayed in a rowdier hostel downtown and have been hanging with the biglads there. Its coming to the end of our time here and everyone going/gone their separate ways, Ben is off to Taiwan and the Philippines, Brooke is going back to Naha, Nick (not me) has already left for Spain and Nick (me) still doesn't really have a plan. Prob going to Nagoya to stay with a friend for a bit, then debating whether to get a job here or come back to the Engerland for summer. Best get cracking with those plans, instead of spending hours writing about crabs and how I've got no plans.....ahem.

And I'm away, like a bee in a wetsuit....

ciao (air kiss, air kiss, headbutt)