Now I was lucky that I knew about this sale. On Monday at work someone left a flier next to my desk that showed some snowboard gear and that had huge 50% numbers written all over it. I am guessing it was my supervisor at school, and although nothing was explained I guess he figured I would take a look at it and hopefully understand what it meant, and understand I did!
So a 1 hour train ride to Moriyama and it was well worth it! I have been looking for a jacket in Japan for about 3 weeks now. Everywhere I go it is too short for my height or my arms. I figured, this snowboard store must have brands like Burton and 686 that carry normal sizes right? RIGHT!
Now normally a Burton or name brand coat can cost about $600 if you want it insulated and about $150 if you are just looking for a shell. Unfortunately my brand new Burton shell went missing before I left for Japan, so good Karma had to come into play this time around right? TOTALLY RIGHT!
Japan is a very fashion conscious country. Actually, basically everywhere I go I almost feel under dressed. This worked out in my favor largely today. I walked around and found a coat that was about $50. It was apparently waterproof and was just a shell. Before I decided on purchasing it though I took a look upstairs, and so very glad I did. At first I saw the normal fare, bright colored geometrical patters that are becoming very popular with the "hey look at how awesome I am" group of kids. I myself like a more subdued solid color like military greens, tans, browns, etc. Looking at the price tags of about $500 on most coats or $250 on a nice neon green and purple coat with pink squiggles and triangles all over it, I was about to give up and buy my somewhat poorly made coat I found on the first floor. Then I turned the corner...
A sign saying, "Last year." So I figured, OK, lets look. EVERYTHING on the rack was $100. Jackets that were once $500 are $100, once $250 now $100. I figured it was a strange way to mark down items, but what the hell. Also another score, they were American sized with all the specs in every language including my own, English! Now the hard choice to pick which jacket. Since almost all the left over sizes were XL, because I am guessing there isn't many XL sized people in Japan, I was very excited.
I narrowed it down to two jackets. A Volcom Thinsulate jacket or a 686 Down jacket. I am generally not a huge fan of down since it seems to like falling out and leaving a feather trail everywhere, but when asking the girl at the store which jacket she recommended she said the 686 Down jacket. Which basically meant, it looks cooler. I kind of agreed since the coat seemed a bit longer all the way around. Plus the shell material is thick and if it is waterproof I shouldn't have to worry too much about wet feathers. Not to mention wearing a down coat always reminds me that I am in the military for some reason (the smell?), and I guess that is good when I want to be kicking ass on the mountain.
New coat and pants.
Inside of my coat, it's apparently an artist edition. Sweet!
I wonder if the Gortex pants can double as rain pants. Useful!
Next was to find some snow pants. After looking around, some blond hair Japanese dude that definitely looked like he belonged on a skateboard or snowboard said in Japanese, "Look at this one over here, if it your size I would get it. See it says Gortex, so you will stay dry. That's my recommendation anyway." So Burton Gortex snowpants, $100.
All in all I got a $500 686 coat for $100 and $600 Burton snow pants for $100. Nothing like getting over $1000 worth in gear for $200. I was very impressed! Both in the prices and that I found stuff that fit me in Japan, and fit me well nonetheless! One thing I learned from this is, Japan might have some of the best pre-season sales that I have ever seen, as long as you go for last years fashion.
If I had more cash I might have considered getting a board while I was here, could probably have gotten a board and binding set for about $400. Now I am kind of wishing I brought my gear from the U.S. to Japan. I am not sure if it is even possible to ship that stuff here or how much it would cost. Most likely I can get away with renting gear this year, except I will have to purchase some snowboard boots from zappos.com along with some warm socks and maybe a few more pieces of footwear. Apparently zappos has started shipping internationally, but it costs around $60 to ship a package.
If you are wondering how good the snow can be in Japan I am only about 3 or 4 hours away from what are known as the Japanese Alps and about 1 and a half hours from a smaller mountain in my prefecture.
This is not Switzerland. Japanese Alps.
Amazing there is that and then beautiful beaches only 2 hours away in the summer time.
Wakasa Wada Beach. The Japan Sea.
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