Проблем са бордерима се не завршава на томе, има још разлога зашто њима није место на скијалиштима заједно са скијашима. Прво, главна су сметала на изласку са жичаре/гондоле. Имате ситуацију од нпр. 20 бордера на самом изласку са лифта начичканих по сред стазе како везују везове, и морате да се пробијате кроз исте да можете да почнете да се спуштате низ стазу. Уместо да поседају по страни, једни иза других, и оставе одређену ширину слободну – рашире се целом ширином. Наравно, људи који воде скијалишта су увидели проблем, па су направили раздвојну траку на излазу са лифта, лево је директан пролаз, а десно је ”fitting”. Идеја је фантастична, једино је проблем што постоји она мањина бордера који се не обазиру на то па седну посред траке за пролаз и тако блокирају скијаше.

Бордери се крећу у хордама. При скијању наићићете на гомилу група бордера који седе (не сваки пут на ивици) стази и не раде ништа. Као да су се окупили на чајанци или нечему сличном и проводе сто година блокирајући део стазе. Ал ок, то могу да и разумем, људи се друже и то је лепо, ал ипак лепо би било да не сметају другима. Неко би помислио да у Јапану, земљи где се гледа да никоме никако не сметате да се то подразмева, али то није тако. Оставимо на страну дружење, бордери имају ту навику да само седну на сред стазе, сами. Али на сред стазе. Сами. Много њих има ту навику. На крају је могуће возити гранд слалом на стази и замислити да су бордери заставице.

Ако пробате да возите иза бордера, то није баш најбоља идеја. На ужим пролазима није могуће их лако обићи јер лелулају лево десно, а ако возите иза њих је и помало опасно возити, јер имају тенденцију да неконтролисано, неочекивано, без разлога падну… Ако и бацимо поглед на просечног бордера овде – из њиховог положаја тела не може се рећи да имају и добар преглед ситуације на скијалишту где се спуштају. Лако им је да гледају на једну страну, ал на другу врло тешко што може бити и врло опасно ако одлуче да скрену на ту страну.

Зашто су бордери уопште на скијалиштима? На лепим, утабаним стазама? Зар нису бордови предвиђени за неутабан снег, за бордовање ван стаза? Просто је жалосно видети на шта лепо утабана стаза личи пошто хорда бордера прође истом…

Следећи пост биће о скијалишту број два ове године… Овај пут сам једноставно морао да избацим из себе негативну енергију о бордерима.

У Јапану скијање је изгледа један од мало луксузнијих начина за провођење времена, и за разлику од Србије, а вероватно и већине других земаља, ски пас нема да се купи за седам дана, него максимално три дана. Обзиром да сам ја ишао на четири дана од агенције сам добио један тродневни и један једнодневни ски пас. Реакција Јапанаца када чују да идем на скијање четири дана је била да сам ја пун пара… Студенти овде углавном иду на два или три дана скијања/бордовања. У цену аранжмана је укључено све – превоз, смештај, клопа – па чак и рентирање опреме, али оне основне, старије. Ако неко жели карвинг скије ту иде доплата од око 1000 до 1500 дин дневно, и препоручљиво је узети и осигурање опреме, што изађе додатних 500 дин дневно.

Шетајући кроз продавницу спортске опреме установим да скије могу поприлично јефтино да се набаве сад при крају сезоне и да попусти иду и до 50% (а можда и више). Брзо у глави срачунам колико ћу дана провести на скијању ове године, а и идућих, и схватим да ми се више исплати да купим своју опрему него да плаћам харач на карвинг скије. Избор скија није лак, ал сам успео да се изборим да сведем избор на 5 скија, и онда сам потражио помоћ на скијанје.рс форуму – и на крају се определио за 6-ти пар скија (као што то обично бива кад се бира између 5 пари). Скије које сам узео су Fischer Progressor 10+ и врло сам задовољан истим. По први пут имам добре скије, и разлика је приметна. Стабилне у свакој ситуацији, додуше пробао само на лепо одржаваним стазама и на фином снегу. Скије саме по себи желе брзину, а ако се укомбинују са одговарајућом пратећом музиком онда може и да се деси да се вози брже него што се жели.

На скијање сам отишао на скијалиште Шига Коген. Има око 40 лифтова и око 90 нумерисаних стаза, а има и стаза које нису нумерисане, иако су обележене. Скијалиште се простире на око пет планина и готово на све стазе може да се дође на скијама, а за два удаљенија скијалишта може да се иде ски-бусом. Ски бус иде два пута на сат и пролази цело скијалиште и ски пас важи у њему и цео сат после затварања жичара. Не постоје ћорсокаци на стазама – типа заглавите се негде, жичара више не ради и не можете до хотела, увек може се стићи до улице где саобраћа аутобус. У односу на Копаоник има предности а и мане. Нпр, неке од мана су да нема нигде лепиња са кајмаком и пршутом, нити кувани купус… Али ако гледамо са реалније стране, скијање овде је било прелепо. На по две – три стазе иду четири – пет ратрака, што ће рећи да су стварно добро одржаване. Стазе су глатке ко тепсија, а доста њих је и поприлично широко – обзиром на глаткоћу и ширину мислим да би стаза могла да се користи као писта. Наравно, постоје и неравне стазе, ал то су стазе за могул и класификоване су као црне, што стварно и јесу. Да би све стазе могле бити спојене као што сам рекао, и то са обе стране пута морају се решити и географски проблеми. Тако да постоји велики број ски тунела између стаза, испод пута, а и ауто тунела испод стаза. Нагиби стаза се крећу од наивних до 40так степени (нисам се усудио спустити се низ тих 40 степени (зато што је био могул у питању)). Већину времена сам провео на олимпијским стазама, које су се опходиле лепо према мени прва три дана. Скијалиште је било готово празно јер су радни дани у питању, а време савршено. За разлику од Скијалишта Србије овдашња управа је држала цео центар укључен па је могло свугде да се скија, а да се не чека уопште. Ал дошао је и тај четврти дан, дошло много скијаша, ал и бордера који униште стазе. Са њима дошла је и магла која је смањила видљивост на отприлике 20 метара. Под таквим условима, успео сам да олимпијску стазу, коју сам прешао милион пута без падова, пређем на стомаку и леђима јер сам се саплео на врху. Позитивна страна тога је што ми је скије и штапове донела ски патрола (симпа девојка ). Иначе још пар ситница, цене нпр јесу туристичке по продавницама, ресторанима и сл, ал нису Копаоничке. А изгледа и да је заједничко целом свету да имате почетнике који возе плуг на црвеној стази. Додуше, да будем искрен, таквих случајева је врло мало, али исто тако видео сам једну госпођу како плужи праволинијски низ олимпијску стазу. Стазе су одлично обележене, ограђене, обезбеђене мрежама где треба, пре почетка стрмих делова упозорење о нагибу и сл.

Ако некога још нешто занима око скијања… нека ми се обрати електронском поштом, па ћу радо одговорити.

After the pause for lunch we headed for some other hiking somewhere else – I have no idea where we were – but it was near some ice cave and we also went inside. I was reading a warning about watching your head and 5 seconds later – BANG! I realized why they were warning me… ceilings can be really low – and on some places we almost had to crawl trough – but it was worth it. Cave was nice – but slippery and with lot of ice. I captured few views from it – and you can check it out in gallery – but there is much more to see than on those photographs.

There was a thing that I wanted to do so I asked a driver of a bus for permission – and of course I got it. I sat in front of the driving wheel and posed for some pictures. In fact much more pictures than I expected because I turned out to be tourist attraction and a lot of people started taking photos of me. One thing I was asked to do it – and I already knew that I have to do it because I saw it from the driver – is that I have to take of my shoes before entering the drivers place. And since I didn’t notice any other shoes in the cabin – I guess they are driving barefoot… Did I tell you that I managed to ask for permission to sit there in Japanese – not in English ; )

He took us back home – with someone singing on karaoke again ; ) Next time I am definitely taking part in karaoke.

Two days ago rain season officially started so I am sad a bit because of that – but what can I do… It just means that we will have a bit more rain in next 40 days (I wonder how is it possible to be more raining compared to last month…). We were also warned that it will be very humid from now on and to watch out on the food – it will become bad very fast. So we have to avoid keeping it too long out of fridge or we risk food-poisoning. And since our health insurance covers only 70% of the bills – we should really be careful. I don’t know how much are those 30% and I do not intend on finding out that.

Until next time – see you! I’m going to study now…

We had a visit to Fuchi-shi recycling center and watched a movie about recycling in there and saw the machines. The movie was in 日本語 (Japanese) and we were not provided with translations but I could understand the point. I can tell you one thing – they are crazy… As I have already told you they require you to separate all your trash to several categories – but it’s not only that. YOU have to WASH cans and bottles etc. before you throw it to trash. If you want to throw out something huge like old chair – you can not just throw it like that – but you have to take it to recycling center – and to pay them to take it. There they have also a store of recycled things – recycled furniture, recycled bicycles (they have a mechanics who assemble bicycles from parts available – and it seems that they do a good job).

Two days ago we had guest teachers from other universities to practice talking with them. I was very nervous about it prior to the class but in the end it wasn’t that bad and I was astonished how good I could talk. Also somehow came the theme of what languages we can speak – I think it was when I mentioned that I know Russian. So he asked me which language we speak in Serbia – I say Serbian, and he was like OK, you know Serbian, English, Russian and now you are learning Japanese – wow… And later I had just to add – I know also Croatian, Bosnian, I can understand if I struggle Macedonian… I am sorry that I didn’t add Montenegrin and that I can understand a bit of Bulgarian. And like a cherry on the top I added that I learned Latin in school… Now he was like no way… and asked me to tell him something in Latin… But the good thing is that I really learned a bunch of quotes from Latin and that is the only thing I remember. I could maybe read now Latin – but probably couldn’t translate anything. I even started learning German – my friend, Lijljana-san, gave me classes of it but I was really busy and… heh… irresponsible…. so I didn’t learn it… My Russian here is improving a lot…

Hmmm… next few lines will be only for Serbian speaking folks for undisclosed reason ; )
Juče htedoh da zapalim sa poslednjeg časa jer tu ne vode evidenciju ko je prisutan – u principu se gledaju neki filmovi i sl – ne mogu da se setim čega je čas – al nebitno… U principu stižem ja u lift i ljudi mi kažu – e javili su nam da danas vode evidenciju ko je prisutan… i svi smo otrčali nazad na čas… Stvarno su upisivali… Mada vredelo je ostati.
On last class we have watched one part of the very long movie called “Corporations”. I recommend to all to watch it – it is about how the corporations came to life in this world, how are they abusing the planet, manipulating media, using the people in poor countries etc. Please watch it.

Today we had a international welcome party in our cafeteria. There were people from embassies of the students, all students introduced themselves, there were also guests from Japanese government who are responsible for these Monbukagakusho scholarships. If I understood correctly – majority of the students are for arts – and less then 50% is for natural and social sciences. I cannot say that I was surprised, because I was not, that no one from my embassy came. And as Komatsu-sensei told me – they even did not care enough to respond to invitation to say if they are coming. Eto… to su Srbi… odgovornost na nivou…
On the party everyone wanted me to take photos of them – so if I fail in studies – I can go and pursue career in professional photography of this type of events ; ) We had a lot of delicious food available (for free) and at the end of the party they told us to take food with us. And there was a lot of food. So we took it to the dormitory and made after party… We were eating and eating, people came with boxes and carried to their rooms for next days… And we still did not manage to empty the plates. I ate a lot, so much that I couldn’t even breathe anymore, and those of you who know me know that it has to be veeeeery much ; )
I must apologize to a lot of people for not replying to their emails because I really am very tight with time. And when bicycle arrives – it is going to be a disaster.
Tonight expect some photos – at least I expect that I will upload them ; )
If I remember something more – I will write – but for now I can not think about anything interesting…
Now heading to the gym.

P.S. Za one koji su se pitali šta znači ono “Čuvajte mi Jugoslaviju” – to je bilo za one kojima sam obećao da će to da bude sadržaj oproštajne poruke kada budem napuštao Srbiju. Inače tu rečenicu je izgovorio drug Slobodan Milošević kada je išao u Dejton da potpiše sporazum…

Last week we went to a city museum (as you may have already seen in a gallery). We from the social studies went to see something that students from social studies should see – some movie about the culture, festivals and stuff like that and the lucky students from natural studies went to the planetarium. Well I managed to go with natural sciences. I always find a way… The planetarium was fascinating! As a friend told me it is bigger than one in Moscow. The story they spoke in the planetarium was in japanese but the images were so good. Everything seemed so realistic, everything had a 3D effect – you could think that that planet that is approaching is going to hit you. We also have seen animation of two planets colliding – so real that you can’t believe that it is animation. It is unexplainable – you have to go there to see it… Oh yes… the worst nightmare of a photographer happened to me there… I ran out of the batteries for my new camera ; ( But I was ready for that – and pulled out another camera ; ) You can imagine the looks I got while carrying two cameras…

Yesterday I went to my favorite chinese restaurant to have a meal – but this time alone. And what I heard about going to restaurants here alone happened. The guy working there wanted to chat with me ; ) He is very friendly. So here the situation is like that – either they are ultra unfriendly or very friendly. We chatted in Japanese – it was a very simple conversation. He asked me how long I am learning Japanese and instead saying one month I managed to say from the January (in Japanese the name for January is “first month”, which is very similar to “one month”) and when he heard that I didn’t learn Japanese in my country he was very surprised. He was also interested where I am from, what do we eat etc… Of course I told him that we eat a lot of meat – and the next question was which meat we eat? Oh… I wished I knew to say in Japanese that we eat everything that moves… But I had to say pork, chicken, sheep, fish etc… I think he got the picture…

That’s it from me for now…

Čuvajte mi Jugoslaviju ; )

So you decided to come to Tokyo and you want to use your phone here. Well… if it is one of the modern ones, 3G, than you will be able to use it – otherwise forget it. Also if you think that you will buy here a telephone – forget about that also ; ) There are stores for foreigners that sell mobile phones with GSM support – but they are very expensive. And if you want to buy a telephone for usage here – you can also forget about it if you do not have any type of residence here – tourists can not even buy pre paid numbers here – they can only rent it. And 99% of the telephones sold here are tied to the networks and even branded according to the network. So you have Softbank, KDDI, NTT DoCoMo telephones – but nowhere you will find good old Motorola, Samsung etc. (If you check Samsung mobile web site for japanese market you will see that it produces telephones for Softbank). Oh – and did I mention that telephones here are expensive? One good thing about the Softbank – they have a student discount – and with it you don’t have to pay monthly charge but only what you make – and calls and SMS’s between Softbank users are free until 9PM.

We received our bills for electricity… I will have to cut my power usage a bit… I am one of those who has highest bill. And I only use laptop and hot water. I have seen a lot of people now using their laptops in the study room… and only at night use them in their rooms. We all became power savvy people

Shopping here is a real pleasure – especially if you have a VISA card from Meridian Bank – why? I’ll tell you later ; ) Difference here is that in every shop they respect the customer and are always available to help. No one will tell you – “What do you want?! I just swept the floor!”. Every shop also tries to keep it’s customers by issuing loyalty cards with which you get discounts. For example in Yodobashi Kamera when you buy something you get 10% of what you spent on your card so that you can spend it for something else. But that’s not all – some manufacturers even make some promotions – so for example I bought one camera and they will give me 200USD in cash after around a month. I love shopping in Japan! Did I mention that prices in Serbia are around 50% higher than those in Japan?

One thing you do not buy here is paper tissues. Why? Because you can get them for free – they give out them on the street with some adverts together. So if you need tissues – just walk around and you will get them. I now collected so many of them that I started thinking of starting a export business of paper tissues.

I finally bought shoes! I thought that it was mission: impossible – but I succeeded! Often it was like – they are ugly – or more often – they don’t have size I am big foot here ; ) But when I went to Adidas store – there were no such problems. And I didn’t pay too much for them.
So now I started going to the gym – it’s 3 minutes walk from my dorm – and it’s free! And thanks to my friend, Hiks, I know what to do, and more importantly how to properly do it That’s why some of my friends suggested that I should organize them a training ; )

Next week I am buying a bicycle here and I will see if the bicycles are stolen in Tokyo. I hope they are not – but who knows? I found the place where I will buy it – but I do not know how to transport it to my dormitory. I guess I will have to ride it back to the dorm. ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD! That is going to be fun. Good thing is that until the end of this month I have travelers insurance so I am covered for injuries up to 15 000EUR… Oh and by the way – shop is located in part of the Tokyo called Ikebukuro. In that part was also Adidas shop. Why am I telling you which part of the Tokyo it is? Well – that part of the Tokyo is part which is controlled by Yakuza’s. But during the day it was safe… but during the night… I don’t want to test.

Two days ago my friend and I went to a sushi restaurant. It was one of those where sushi’s are going around the place on the plates and you pick them off the track when you see some that you like. After that you pay based on amount of plates – and prices are color coded. I don’t know why it works – but it works. I know one place on this planet where people would just put the plate in their backpack… they would get free plate and free meal ; ) After experimenting a lot – we decided that it was enough – and the best part – it was cheap! Staff was really friendly – and even one of the girls who is working there is going to our university ; ) The chef told my friend that she speaks Japanese really good. So in fact that means the opposite. Here you know that yours Japanese is good only when they stop saying you how good it is.

This weekend I wanted to visit one big park in Shinjuku and one big temple – but because of poor weather conditions – I had to postpone it until next weekend…
I hope that we will have nice weather when we go hiking to mt. Fuji in May.

See ya people!

So you now have evidence that I am in Tokyo.

Marta, Jana and I in the morning – at 9AM (on Saturday…) went sight seeing in the center of our part of Tokyo. We only visited the Shinto shrine – Okunitama Shrine – which is one of the oldest shrines in Japan. It is older than 1900 years. I acted as a true Japanese tourist – pointing my camera in every direction and taking photos ; )
We couldn’t enter the shrine so don’t expect some details about it – only thing I can say is – it’s nice. From the outside. In front of it there is a large something where you throw a coin, probably make a wish, bow to it and then clap your hands. That’s what I presumed after carefully watching what are people doing…
After that we went to eat and to shop. I was worse than these girls… they succeeded in buying some stuff while I was only running around the jeans and trying out some. In the end – I didn’t buy anything – I decided to go to another shop and search there ; ) A lot of other things I wanted to buy I didn’t… I didn’t have enough cash with me… for example I found a nice watch, Tag Heuer one, for a merely 2000 EUR. I also had some problems with the clothing… it was not 2000 but only 200 EUR for the t-shirt – OK it has a brand name – but it is still just a t-shirt. And a lot of other stuff was overpriced. I also couldn’t find a Levi’s 501 in color I wanted. Ugh… I hate unsuccessful shopping’s.
After returning home a group formed which wanted to go to visit Tokyo tower. I was very eager to go – so I immediately accepted – under one condition – that my hair dries until that. The problem here is that I don’t have a hair dryer and the second problem is that I don’t even plan on buying one ; ) While we were on our way to the station we had a nice chat – and on the half way to the train station we realized that half of the group was missing. Oups. We than voted what to do and somehow in the end decided that we should go back and check what happened with the rest of the team. They returned because of… what was it? I don’t remember – never mind – but we went to the station all together. We bought the tickets – transfer tickets that is because we needed to change the train at the Shinjuku to the other one. At the Shinjuku we realized that we had the wrong tickets… never mind… bought another ones and went where we wanted. On the exit from the station we were looking where is the tower located on the map – and we couldn’t find it. After asking some young japanese people we realized that we are in the wrong place. So back to the station, buy another ticket and after couple of stops – we were finally on a 10 minute walk from the tower.
Tower itself is I think like Eiffel tower – but bigger and lighter. Japanese also made their own statue of liberty ; ) I have to see that. After waiting in a queue and climbing to the tower we had a nice view of the Tokyo by night. We could also go the the special observation level – way up higher – but they told us that we had to wait 60 minutes – because the queue is that large… no thanks. We were to hungry to wait 60 minutes and after all – what could be different? So we just went back home.
We stopped by a man on a street who is selling some food (you can see it in a gallery) and bought something to eat. I finally started using some japanese – something like – Sore wa nan desu ka? Kore wa ikura desu ka? And stuff like that ; ) It felt a bit odd. The food was not anything special – I should stick to the chinese restaurant near our campus ; )
In the train back home a women from Japan asked us are we foreign students, then where are we from etc. etc. etc… She told me that she had a friend in Serbia – who is now living in Canada… She met him same as she met us in a train – but they became friends – at least so she says. After exiting a train – she also wanted to have a picture with all of us… It was so unusual…