After two hours of sitting in my plane on the runway, I was beginning to think that I would never make it to the Asian Open in Japan.  My two traveling buddies were DC’s Jonas Carlson and Luke Anderson (Jamie Anderson’s older brother), who had taken a Nyquil and Valium cocktail just before boarding. When it was announced that our flight was cancelled until the following morning, people began to move around the cabin and grab their bags. The sleeping giant, Luke, woke up pretty delusional thinking that we had arrived in Tokyo!  Luke and I then decided to journey to Hollywood for the night to see some friends and retrieve my Nikita jacket that I had accidentally left there the night before.

One plane, four trains, 6 busses, and 48 hours later, we finally arrived at ALTS Bandai Resort around midnight. Since I had missed the practice day for the slopestyle course, I woke up and went straight into my qualifying runs, where  I competed with about 50 other girls. I made it through to the next round and then had two perfect practice runs through the course before the semi- finals. Too bad I didn’t ride as well during the contest! I didn’t make it to finals so I had the next few days to just hang out and enjoy myself!  

I ate a lot of interesting foods and tried to learn a little Japanese. I went swimming in the pool and hot tub and went to the onsen (Japanese natural hot spring bath house) at least once a day. I shredded around with Vicci Miller to check out the rest of the resort. There was a lodge up on the mountain that had a cocktail lounge, a disco style restaurant, and a mini ramp! I had a fun little skate sesh and then felt like a rock star when many Japanese people wanted to “take photo” with me after I was done!

The main lodge had restaurants, a store, a convention room, and a small Rasta village outside. This is where all the best food was! With reggae music blaring over the speakers, you could find rice bowls, curries, shredded beef or chicken noodle pitas, soups, hot dogs and hamburgers, crepes, coffee, ice cream, and Japanese tacos!

Friday night, we saw some traditional Japanese entertainment. First, there was about 12 young school children and two elders with a coordinated and very impressive drum ceremony. Then, a group of men all in yellow jackets came out with big barrels of rice. They all took turns swinging and beating the rice with huge wooden mallets and then let people from the audience take a few swings as well… When the rice was all mashed up, they set up a little station and helped everyone make their own mochi. It was delicious!

After the slopestyle awards on Saturday, everyone was fired up. The Asian Open posters read “Saturday night party with the Samurai Troops”. We were all excited to see some Samurai sword fighters! When we arrived at the party, we realized that the Samurai Troops were actually a Japanese hip hop group whose song had been playing over the park speakers for the past few days. There was lots of drinking and dancing and Jamie Anderson even DJ’d a little bit while we piled as many people on to the stage as possible for a massive dance party! It was followed by an all night Karaoke session and then a short stumble up to our rooms for a couple hours of sleep.   A bunch of the girls joined us on our bus back to Koriyama Station. We all said our goodbyes as most of them headed to Tokyo, and Vicci and I were off to Hokkaido to join the crew from World Snowboard Guide for our next adventure!

Japan is amazing! I love the culture, food, and the people…Can you believe that they have beers and sake in vending machines!?(Which were emptied quite a few times! Wow, what a great country! Stay posted for an update on my next adventure!

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