Japan! Beanie Milne-Home heads to the land of powder... and rain. PART 2.

 

following on from Beanies last story about japan, the rain and powder continues.....

After two days of rain, and the warmest night on record ever for February in Japan, it finally started to snow.  We couldn’t wait for the morning and headed out into the night to shoot over 70cm of fresh powder. Just walking through it would give you face shots and it was hard not to lose skiers instantly as we dropped in and disappeared, this is why I came to Japan. 

rain one day...

powder the next!

Warm temperatures through the night meant the snow had sunk to half by the morning but we found epic snow in the trees of Akakura to finally shoot and film.  Following day, local legend, Bill, took us out touring into the backcountry where the conditions had deteriorated further, but it was good to get out into the peaks surrounding the resort.

 

 

Again Myoko came through with the goods, after a traditional Japanese dinner cooked by Bills friend we stepped outside to discover 50cm had fallen within a couple of hours and the following day was epic. Conditions changed instantly with it raining over night and all the pow gone by morning.  We packed up ready to head to Tokyo the next morning, after a night of traditional Japanese drumming.

We left with another 50cm of fresh fallen over night, Japan likes to tease, but went to see the Snow Monkeys hanging out in the natural onsens and then headed for the bright lights of Tokyo.  Ending up getting more filming done in the city as we recreated the fight seen with the crazy 88 in the Kill Bill Izakaya.  Apparently having a bunch of fools charging about with plastic samurai swords in your restaurant is no problem in Japan. 

Although the snow was not everything we hoped for, we had glimpses of what Japow is and our stay was amazing regardless of the conditions, thanks to the hospitality and kindness of the Japanese people.