NGS

NGS stands for Niseko Ground Service. This is the hut we worked in. They were so good to us, the 3 of us worked day about, we'd get picked up at 7:20am and work till around 12:45, sometimes later or we'd start at different times, which meant lot's of riding time as we would take our gear with us :D They took good care of us and were so kind and are grateful for all they did for us. We must have looked like we'd lost a lot of weight as after a few weeks of work there they asked if we had and were concerned by this so started to give us lunch when we were working as the boss was a really good cook.

The people we worked with

For work we would book bus transfers from Chitose airport to Hirafu and Hirafu to Chitose. We would see people off on the buses making sure everyone on the list was onboard. Also other tasks on the computer. They would teach us some Japanese words/ phrases and learnt a lot from them about the culture and the country. Arigato NGS :)

First night out in Hirafu....

Barry, Craig and I went in past where we would be working for the season and they invited us to a meet and greet dinner at Aspara Lodge a backpackers lodge in Hirafu. We went along stoked to get some proper food after having lived off pizza and noodles since arriving!! We met everyone we would be working with and the people who work at the lodge, pretty soon the wine was flowing much to Barry and Craig's delight, haha while trying to take in what everyone was saying in Japanese. Chris and Steve were heading into Hirafu as it was the opening night of some bars so we headed to meet them.

On finding the bar we were going to meet them at we were greeted by many an Ozzie one in particular who had met Steve and from this night onwards they had struck a special bond, haha!! So we knew they were around, we went in to try find them but no sign so headed to another bar which had a really small entrance Barry had to duck to get in. The guys were loving being out surrounded by all the girls whereas I was a bit more uncomfortable, I made the effort to speak to people but find it hard as am not used to going out, I want to be more sociable but still struggle as there are always cooler people around who attract the attention and I don't have the confidence to go up to people and start a conversation, something I really need to work on!! We were out until around 4am or something and the only way back to Kutchan was to walk or hitch a ride. Luckily Chris managed to get us a ride with us all crammed into the small car, big BP in the boot, the guy we had seen out in the bars, his driving scared Craig with the guy shouting 'I like danger' and doing hand brake turns whenever he could we were happy to get back in one piece. Home to bed, few hours sleep to being picked up at 8am for first day of work!!

Mini VW Camper Van, only in Japan, haha

First Shred Yeow!!

We were getting pretty desperate to get on our boards, once the snow started to fall they were holding off opening up the mountain as to get a good base down I guess, so we went exploring around Kutchan with boards in hand.


There was an old ski jump up on this big hill within walking distance from where we stayed. We wondered up there along the way coming across some benches to jib and some mini jumps through trees. What the guys were most stoked on were these rad looking round toilet building that they wanted to bomb drop, was awesome to watch them do this one day hopefully I'll get to do something like that!! Photo's and footage of this does exist but I don't have it!!

Wondering the snowy streets of Kutchan at night :D

On riding down the slope which did not have a great covering of snow with lot's of big ruts meant lot's of falling and tumbling around, Craig was flying down, Barry had a wee incident involving a hand and a spade: Word of warning don't ride carrying a big metal spade!!


.... Finally the mountain was opened up, just one pisted run, 2 lifts running but we were stoked. Heading up early, getting our season passes, seeing this rad dude we called Jibber-san doing insane flat land trickery inspiring us to brush up on our flat land skills :) The mountain then closed again cause we got more rain but after another week of waiting we were back on the shred, woohoo!!

Rainy Days....

When we first arrived there was no snow and it was raining. Normally there would have been snow but it was a slow start to the season so we were confined to our rooms perfecting the art of chilling to the max!! We would be on our laptops surfing the web, or watching movies, having group movie showings where we would all be on our laptops starting the film at the exact same time, haha!! Barry taught Steve how to juggle which was very amusing to watch, he got real good at it but would have his leg bopping up and down with this crazy expression on his face, I sadly did not master the art of juggling but Barry taught me the trick to completing a rubix cube which I had never done before and within 2 days got it, woohoo!!

STOKED

Barry and I also brought out our Freestyle Max dudes (not dolls, haha) out to play and teach them some gnarly maneuvers while filming them for this wee edit....

Tatsumi Share House....

So this is where we stayed, we all loved it here and met some awesome people who we were friends with. It had a caretaker by the name of Mr Suzuki and yes he drove a Suzuki, haha!! He did not speak a word of English so communicating with him was pretty funny. He was always interested in what you were cooking up in the kitchen and he had a bunch of different sauces and spices that Steve loved to experiment with. Always something funny happening with him in the kitchen that would have me laughing so much!!


The cafe was the hang out spot where everyone would drink or play the occasional beer pong before heading out. There were a could of female Japanese pro half pipe snowboarders who stayed for a lil bit before heading off to do some training. Also later on a girl called Sayaka stayed there with her bro, she is sponsored by DC, Neff, Oakley and a bunch of other Japanese riders, saw her riding in the park a few times doing some nice big stylee front 3's. Check out her blog here, if you google translate it you will see she mentions us in it :).... http://sayaka1011.blog121.fc2.com/ we were sad to see them go along with Kyousuke. All of the Japanese riders who we lived with and rode with are amazing, so much pop and style on their boards riding in crews just having fun!!


Here's a photo of us with some of them....

Masa, Steve, Sayaka, Natalie, Chris, Kyousuke, Sayaka's bro

It was cool staying here too as it was traditional Japanese sliding doors, rice matting, we even had some stuffed birds (pheasants maybe) as decoration much to the delight of Craig and Chris!! Here's a couple of pics showing the 2 rooms we had....

At it's cleanest your lucky if you could see the floor normally, haha!!

Smaller room through lens of Barry's cool goggles

Cool view at night outside our window, this is the first night we finally got some snow and it started to lie fast :D

Saporro to Kutchan....

On arriving in Saporro we were to get the train to Kutchan Station as the Tatsumi Share House we would be staying at was seemingly just around a 5 minute walk away. We had an hour or so to chill in the train station on changing trains half way there. I passed the time by taking some photo's.

my shoes :)

On the trains we past I guess what you'd call the Japanese countryside. When passing towns they are still very oldy worldy which is cool to see as you see more of the real Japan and you realize even while being in Tokyo they are known for all their technological advancements but still hold on to their heritage and traditional way of living.

The Crew....

TOKYO YO STOKYO....

Arriving in Tokyo on the 21st November we had a few days to explore this crazy, random, awesome city. Where we were staying we were introduced to the Japanese way of sleeping on the floor which is all good. Getting used to the subway system there we wondered around the various areas Tokyo is made up of. We did A LOT of walking around but it really was the best way to see this amazing city.

on the subway

We would stumble upon hidden treasures which showed some serenity amongst the hustle and bustle of the busy streets, such as this beautiful temple....

When we went to check out the famous busy Shibuya Crossing we thought this a perfect opportunity to get a random photo for a write up on Craig's new Anon goggles for the Boarderline blog, check the write up here.... http://bashi-bazouks.blogspot.com/2010/11/will-it-shred-figments.html

We spent a good amount of time wondering around trying to find the music area in Tokyo that we'd heard of but could not find it, I think we were real close to it but just not close enough!! Although it was not a waste we saw some cool sights, one thing you'll notice is there is an abundance of bicycles that are just left lying around in long rows, another thing you'll find in abundance is vending machines selling all sorts of drink, even warm coffee/ hot chocolate in a can, beer and the drink we were most stoked on Mountain Dew :)

Our last night in Tokyo ended in one banger of a night out, we went in search of the best clubs to go to. We found a small one called Gas Panic, not much going on in there but playing some good tunes. We met a couple of random dudes who turned out to be creeps but they took us by taxi to another area of Tokyo and a rad night club where many people were there having a good time, we musta been the only white people there or there were very few anyway!! Busting out the dance moves a dance off soon commenced between Barry and what seemed to be a local crew, then I got dragged up to dance with them too, good times had by all with a funny story or two that I'll keep quiet about, haha!!

We left the club after 5 am cause that's when they close, made friends with a GIANT fish, ventured into some other bars along the way trying to find the right subway station heading into another random empty building, Steve buying green tea which he thought was juice, on an empty train with 3 Ozzies heading to the early morning fish market with Craig trying to get them to smell the tea ( it stank!!), finding our way back, an hour and a halfs sleep, up to catch another few trains to airport, fly off up to Saporro and our place of residence for the next 5 months, phew!! As you can tell it was an eventful night and the guys were on top form, haha!!


Here's an edit of our time in Tokyo, enjoy....

First Season, YAY....

Nearing the end of last year I had some bad stuff going on in my head and just really needed to get away from everything, experience something new as was stuck in a rut afraid of change preventing me from living life to the fullest. On speaking to Barry he asked me what I loved doing most, whether it was my running, my art or my snowboarding and as much as I love doing the other activities snowboarding is what I am most passionate about. On discussing this further Barry said I should consider going to Japan with him for the season, so with some final wise words from Nicol I decided to go for it and damn it why did I not do something like this sooner!!


On the 20th November 2010, a crew of Barry, Craig Rumbles, Chris Baxter, Steven Gunn and I headed to Japan with Andy Laird coming out to join us for a few month on New Years Eve. Was an awesome crew of riders to be with and still can't quite believe I got the opportunity to do this, thank you Barry as with out you I would not have been introduced to the WORLD of snowboarding and would still be stuck in the Scottish bubble and man there is so much more to riding I'm in love with it even more!!


The following posts will be of updates of our time in Japan, I should have started this blog earlier but am back home now with some down time before heading off again so figured it would be cool to start something like this :)


Will say now that any edits posted up of our time in Japan were all edited by Barry!!

Dryslope....

Photo-Slav

This is a shot of the Dryslope which I have ridden every week for the last 6 years or so. It is like it's own lil community always getting stoked on what each others doing and helping each other out with new tricks, etc. Welcoming new comers with open arms, it really is amazing to see the progression year round at the slope. I have met some rad rad people here and some who I see as my best friends. 3 dudes who I see as my mentors in snowboarding are Nicol Paton, Ben Kinnear and Barry Parker, they have helped me in so many ways and am forever grateful to them for this has meant so much having these guys being there for me and have a huge amount of respect for them. I hope one day I can help them out or be there for them as much as they have for me.

Contest Results....

Aberdeen Snowsports Centre started a competition series called the Carpet Burn Cup in 2009 which consisted of 5 tightly fought rounds in Big Air, Bumps, Rails, Slalom and Half Pipe. I won each round being the first female to lift the carpet burn cup cup, stoked :) We also had a Top Dog staff mini comp where we did all the rounds in one night and everyone voted who they thought were top skier and top boarder could be male or female and I was shocked when I was voted Top Dog, this really meant a lot to me.

The Scottish scene has a series called the Lowlander which is ran every year and I entered it for the first time, season 2009/ 2010. It is a comp held at each of the dryslopes in Scotland where you are judged on jump and rails. There are 4 rounds to it and I won each round winning the whole Lowlander series. I was chosen to receive the most awesome prize of heading to Switzerland and meeting up with Donnie and the rest of the crew from Synergy Snowsports.... http://www.synergysnowsports.com/ for their first ever Park Tour, 6 Parks in 6 Days, was a super small crew of us and we did it, I learnt so much it really was AWSM :D

Own It 2009 - 1st (Local comp held in Aberdeen, judged on jump, rails and Quarter Pipe)

Own It 2010 - 2nd

Westbeach Freestyle Series Aberdeen - 2nd

Westbeach 2nd

Sponsors....

I'm stoked to be on the Boarderline Snow Team :D Boarderline is a local board shop in Aberdeen, check out their website here.... http://www.boarderline.co.uk/ and their brand spanking new blog here.... http://bashi-bazouks.blogspot.com/

I am also part of the raddest crew of riders around, we call ourselves Team Radstorm. We got together for a edit comp at the dryslope which we won with this edit....

We loved riding together so much that we continued the shred having much fun along the way. Team Radstorm have a blog, check it out here.... http://teamradstorm.blogspot.com/ Keep your eyes peeled for the feature length film Rainy Days due to hit screens spring next year, it's gonna be RAD!! 

We received a bit of worldwide acclaim last year when Halldor Helgason loved an edit we did inspired by one the Helgasons and Torstein did and he put it up on their blog, we were in shock, speechless and super super stoked on this, here's the edit....

Radstorm learning to be G from the helgassons from BarryP on Vimeo.

Helllloooo....

Welcome to my blog....

My name is Natalie Riley, a snowboarder from Aberdeen, Scotland. Learning to ride at the age of 19 snowboarding soon consumed my life, becoming a snowboard instructor on graduating from university I became an Instructor at my local dryslope.... http://www.skiaberdeen.com/ Having met and ridden with amazing people along the way I have decided to follow my dream and travel the world snowboarding as that's what makes me happy, very very happy :D