March 9th, 2008: Moya Hills SBX Competition

The next weekend after Hyakuzawa was the Moya Hills SBX Championship. Back to back race weekends this year and all my friends from Hakkoda entered the race so it was so much fun. This included riders like Brian Y., Mitsuru, Eiko, Kazuo, Ichiko, Takachan, Hiishi, and myself.

Again thanks goes out to Abe-san for putting in hard work and creating a course that was fun and chill. There were two sets of waves.... right at the beginning and right at the end. It seemed that the last 8 wave set took a lot of people out. Fortunately for me, I didn't have any problems with the course. I had problems with my wax. Yah story of my life. In a previous race I won race wax as a raffle prize and thought I would just save money this year and not spend $40 on the proper temp wax for just 1 race (it was +8C that day). I used -4C to 0C wax and figured I could brush it up really well and get by. Hell its just wax right? Wrong..... I learned that no matter how fast of a rider you are, if you're on a slow board you're not going to win...PERIOD! So I ended up Top16 or better known as the quarter finals. Brian did awesome and made the Top8. Mitsuru did the best out of all of us and he was all drunk! He made the finals but slipped up in the beginning and never could catch the pack... 4th place. I really thought he was going to win. Kazuo and Hiishi were eliminated before the quarter finals which shocked me. Kazuo is soooo quick and so talented.

For the ladies, 1st place was Mika Sensei, 2nd was Ichiko!, 3rd was Takachan, and 4th was Eiko. In the end, the Hakkoda riders all did very well but none of us were able to win it! Hehe, but winning isn't everything and since this will be my last boarder X race...definitely good times and good memories.

January 13th, Car LIFE

This was a Sunday usually spent at Hakkoda...however the winds were too extreme at 30 km/hr which stopped all gondola activity. Instead of just packing up and going home, Brian and I decided to build beds in our cars. YES!!!! This means we are gonna sleep in our cars at -10 to -15 degrees Celsius all winter long!

Unfortunately, we were no longer able to stay at Mitsuru and Reiko's house because their landlord enforced a "no friends over for the weekend" rule. Bummer, but since they weren't paying anything for rent, it was best to respect the landlord's obscene rule and go on with life.

Our friend Makoto helped us build our beds since he had a pre-fab bed made for his Pajero and had a good idea on what to do (also he had all the tools at his house). Our first stop was Home Center Sunday!! Here, we rounded up the necessary wood, screws, carpeting and began construction immediately upon return. After about two hours of manual labor our goal was complete. With a total cost of about $20 I had a bed that allowed me to lay flat and get a good night's sleep. I think Brian spent $50 since his is incognito convertible....extra cost for coolness.

Our last year in Japan, a year to remember as we spent Hakkoda winters living out of our cars.