Skate Japan 2009

Favorite Pictures Vol.1.5

2009-09-04T06:28:00.001-07:00

Another shot from the ferry

Heavy rain in Tokyo

Shot at dusk 35km north from Sendai

Random coastline shot

Same as above

Favorite Pictures Vol.1

2009-09-04T06:01:00.000-07:00

I emptied my first memory card on my computer and edited some of my favorite shots to be posted here. I'd like to remind you, that I am NOT a very good photographer nor do I have a professional grade camera.

From the Hakodate-Aomori Ferry

View of some mountains in Hokkaido

Lake Toya in the blue moment

A mountain stream in Hokkaido

The obligatory car lights shot from Osaka

Tokyo Ranger

2009-08-31T04:39:00.000-07:00

I must apologize for the lack of posts in a while. I made it to Tokyo and got a horrible flu that kept me down for a while. Also Tokyo is something that took quite a while to kinda sink in for me, it is overwhelmingly huge.

Well, let's get the most unpleasant news out of the way right at the start. My right foot has gotten it's share of punishment along the years, including a few surgeriers and metal rods inside. It went basicaly completely immobile, swollen and incredibly painful.

After waiting for it to get better in Tokyo to no avail, I decided to call it quits, since I was kinda planning to do another skateboarding journey next year and I don't wanna destroy my legs completely.

I made my way to Tokyo Tower that seemed appropriate ending point, considering that I started from Sapporo TV Tower. Thus I travelled around 1300-1400 kilometers, in about a month, trough horribly hard terrain and weather. I am most pleased with my self and I had really good time.

Now on to talking about Tokyo. It is really hard to longboard in there. My board rules in down hills and long distance but it really isn't designed to being a snappy city cruiser. Tokyo also has a lot of people, bikes, cars and other stuff that comes on the way.

Tokyo is ludicrously huge. I don't know how it would feel like for someone from a another actual metropolis. To me it is just... Incredible. The aproach with skateboard was a weird dystopian nightmare, 150km of nothing but urban area, the last six hours in darknes and rain. To put things in perspective, the whole Finland has a slightly bigger area than Japan. The population of Finland is about 5,2 million people. The population of Tokyo is about 13 million people, and counting the suburbs, around 32 million.

I come from a relativley big city in Finland, Turku. The population of Turku is 175 422 people (according to wikipedia) with population density of 714 people/km².

Comparing this to the 13 million people living in a city with population density of 5,847 /km² makes my head hurt.

There is so much to see and do in Tokyo, it would take like a year to get the basic grasp of the place. It is still very interesting, I can very warmly recommend Tokyo BakPak Hostel as a place of residence, if you're contemplating a trip to Tokyo. Very nice place, even nicer people and awesome atmosphere and a convenient location 5min walk from the Minowa station, that is few stops from Ueno station. The staff also speak very good english.

Even tho I'm heading home, I still have lots of stuff to tell, hundreds of pictures and few hours of video to share.

Thank you for your patience and a humble apology for the long pause in writing, stay tuned for more.

I`m too lazy to write so I post more pictures

2009-08-07T22:46:00.001-07:00

That was one really sick hill.

The views were awesome on the coast of Iwate though the roads were horribly hard

When I asked if the board is weatherproof, I ment it. I was looking pretty much same.

This is the main reason i keep bitchin about rain. I mean yeah, it is uncomfortable and it makes my stuff wet and heavy. But the worst part is what it does to my feet. You know how your feet and hands are all wrinkly and soft after a bath? Well that happens in the rain too. And when I`m skating with my feet like that, they develop hideous blisters and generaly hurt a lot. There is also high risk of infections.

Sometimes rain is nice because you can find company while taking shelter. Here is a cat (I was requested for more cat pictures) whom with I shared a dry spot and a can of macrell while waiting for the rain to end.

2009-08-07T00:08:00.001-07:00

K-ON! is loev

I said goodbye to the Route 45 in Sendai. We had good times.

Sendai cityscape

She sells seashells by the seashore.

The plentifull Vending machines keep me alive

I really went berserk with gaffer tape. Works fine now tho.

Cliss road was rather overwhelming

The suite in the abandoned hotel I slept in

Cool

Now with the pictures

2009-08-06T23:56:00.001-07:00

The man who smells of sunflowerswas nowhere to be seen

Kenshiro doesn`t look all that happy.

New Merrel shoes. Very Nice

The old skateboarding shoes bought from Kuji lasted to Sendai

I only had Zippo fuel for my beercan stove. Heated the water nicely but produced rather dramatic pyrotechnics and blackened the kettle really bad.

A Quickie

2009-08-06T06:19:00.001-07:00

Still pushing hard. The weather has been relatively nice and I`ve capitalized on the good weathers and pushed hard. The humidity is still a problem, I washed some laundry a few days back and still hasn`t dried. And judging from the hideous odor emitting from my bag it is starting to rot and/or brew. My bag is allso sporting a patch of moss. Niiice... I might have to ditch those shirts and socks unless I somehow manage to dry them off.

Today was rather exiting, I found a HUGE abandoned industrial complex. I don`t quite surely know what it had been, maybe an oil refinery. I was thinkin about staying there for the night but while I as exploring the premises, the police decided to show up. I considered applying the Baka Gaijin technique that has gotten me out of sme sticky situations before. That means speaking very very little japanese and being very sorry and very dumb. But since I had my camping equipment with me and no hotel reservations, I decided to just do things ninja style and simply slipped out of there unnoticed. Probably saved me from getting ticketed at the least. This is just a crappy computer in a small cafe so again no pictures, sorry.

Freecamping is illegal in Japan so I`m pretty much breaking at least two laws everytime I pitch my tent somewhere else than a designated camping area. As I have now just left Miyagi prefecture behind me, the population density is drasticaly raising and the surroundings are lot more urban. That means good campsites are very hard to come by.

Hopefully I can find a decent internet cafe soon and make a better post with pictures.

So Long Sendai

2009-08-02T00:38:00.000-07:00

Well, it`s been a while since I last had a chance to use internet so a lot has happened. Well not really all that much except loads and loads of skateboarding. When my poor feet got beter I started out from Kuji and made it to Miyako in just two days. Allthough I was exhausted, I was extremely pleased with myself. That around 80km push in just two days. It might not sound much, but in that extremely tough terrain and scorching heat during the days and rain in the evenings, it was quite a a battle. I am specially fond of the final approach to Miyako. There was a massive thunderstorm as I skated down the huge hill leading down to the town. Wet, dark and dangerous, but Most Awesome at the same time. I faithfully followed the route 45 down towards Sendai stopping in Kamaishi, Kensennuma, Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Mitsushima and finally Sendai.

I was pushing like a man possesed, straining myself to the limits basically every day. At one point I was forced to stay in my tent for allmost 36 hours because of heavy rain and exhaustion. It was really boring. I slept most of the time, because I had pulled a allnighter before that. That was because of the heat. For the first time here, I`ve experienced the dangerously hot weathers. around 30 degree celcius and soaring humidity makes the air as fresh as a warm, wet blanket and heat strokes became major concern. Basicaly I was pouring sweat only after packing my tent in the morning. I decided to go into night rider mode, since it is a little cooler during the nights and I am naturally a nocturnal creature. That all nighter was pretty rough. I went on untill about 5am when I finally found a god spot for my tent. The last few hours reminded me a lot of my time in the military. Pitch black, slight rain coming down, feet hurting like hell. Every time I hit a smal rock ro something else that woud make my skateboard stall, I just fell down on the ground and lie there for a while wheezing and thinkin why would anyone ant to ruin their summer vacation on a endeavour like this. Then I slowly, slowly got up, took my skateboard and kept on pushing.

Good sides about skating at night
It is a bit cooler
Less traffic

Bad sides
It is very, very dark
Stores are pretty much closed. Thank goodnes for the plentifull vending machines and Lawson Stations.
It seems to rain allways.

The darkness makes stuff hard. It gets really dark at about 20.00 (unlike in Finland where the nightles night happens every summer) and Japan really doesn`t have that many streetlights.All I can see while skating at nights is the thin strip of road that my flashlight lights. It`s very hard to see little stones, cracks in the asphalt nad the general shapes of the road.

When I was approaching Sendai, the terrain really flattened out and I made good going. I arrived in Sendai and slept the night in a nice Manga Cafe, called Alpha. It is weird bu nice to crash in a small cubicle with a matress as a floor. I spent some time in Sendai and set out towards south just now. I am now in a antoher Internet Cafe, about 15km from central Sendai, waiting for the rain to stop. I had to say goodbye to the Route 45 in Sendai. I`m now going down the road number 6.

Some random observations

I hate hotels. I seem to sleep a lot better in my tent or in abandoned houses and such. I now avoid hotels as much as possible.

The board is holding up very nicely. It has been bumbed around, it has gotten submerged in water a few times and gotten just as wet from the rain innumerable times. It has fallen of a cliff and of a roof of an abandoned school. And it`s fine. I asked a board for serious use and apparently got one. Great!

I had to buy new shoes again from Sendai. Back to Merrels, much to my delight.

I seem to have misplaced my USB cable somewhere, so now pictures thsi time. I try to post some as soon as possible.

Kuji Goodnes

2009-07-21T20:26:00.000-07:00

Today has me resting at Kuji where I arrived yesterday. My shoes were completely busted and chaffed a hell of a blister on my foot. Even walking is painfull right now, so I`ll rest here untill tomorrow and head out towards south tommorrow. The weather is currently very rainy and cloudy, so now bombing hills today.

Yesterday was one of the best days yet, I made good progress early on and met later this guy called Yasu. He speaks wery good english and has a lot of friends from the USA and New Zealand. We hooked up with a bunch of them later on at a nice little restaurant, had really tasty food and a few beers. It was SO nice to talk with someone properly with proper english. Basically the first normally flowing conversation since I talked to some german guy at the Kansai International on the first day. Nice meeting you guys!

I did some laundry, in a laundromat, not river like the last time, cleaned and lubed my bearings (the ceramic bearings are working really good but still need lots of caretaking), took a shower and made some shopping. New shoes! Now I consider going to an onsen to heal my feet and examine the roads a bit. If the weather gets better I might do some downhill riding later.

There was a solar eclipse here today, but the weather made that pretty insignificant, not much to see of.

A few pictures again!

I don`t know what it says but I think something along the lines of "Awesomeness ahead"

A abandoned roadside restaurant at Hokkaido. It had a nice feeling to it.

Some mountains at a ski resort town

Lake Toya?

The Buddha Of Heavy Metal! Allmost. But he seemed so benevolent that I decided that he is, donated him some of my small changed and told him to Rock Hard! He is now the patriot saint/englightened entity of my trip.

My poor shoesole. The Merrels finaly gave up. Damn, those were some good shoes.

Honshū Here We Go

2009-07-19T20:52:00.000-07:00

I really have to recommend the Freaks Internet Cafe chain. Very comfortable places with "all you can drink" to an extensive soft drinks bar included to addmission fee. This particular Freaks cafe is at Hachinohe, norht Honshu.

I arrived to Aomori a couple of days ago, stayed there for the night and a second night due to rain. Then I set of towards the coast/south down the route 103 in a blasting heat, then in a absolute downpour of water and massive winds. It took a couple of days to cross the mountain range to Misawa. I really oughta make a route map at sometime, here`s basically how it went down. Route 103, Route 40 (absolute murder that road), route 394, route 22, and route 165. Then to Misawa via road 8 (that sucked too) and after spending the night there I set on the route 45 out towards Kuji, 60 something kilometers to south.

The morals are high now as the weather is fair and I have reached the nice, smooth, spacious, and foremostly FLAT(ish) coastal roads. Concerning mountains... You might remember what Samuel L Jackson had to say about snakes on his plane.... Enough Is Enough... Srsly, it was really hard work walking up those mountains in rain and even harder in sun. The roads are very narrow and curvy. Allthough that sounds fun, it isn`t that nice when there are cars going around with you. First you climb up for two days and then spend one day going down leaving behind a trail of your shoesole on fire, blasting like a bat out of hell and trying desperatedly not to wind up as meatloaf on the grill of a oncoming truck. Seriously fun roads to hit at the quiet hours of morning, without a backpack tho.

Speaking of early mornings, the day before yesterday saw me leaving my campsite in hurry at 5 am. It seemed like a good idea to hide from the onslaught of heavy rain and passersby under a small bridge at the mountains. There was even a small trickle of water running under it in which I thought I might take a bath in the morning if it were sunny. Well, I allmost did take a bath in it because the rain kept on coming down hard the whole night and I woke up to find that the small trickle was now a raging torrent on muddy water about 10cm from my tent doorway. I am truly sorry I didn`t take a picture of the scene, because it was epic. Too bad my first thought was "I have to get my stuff outta here" rather than "Damn, it`ll be a kickass picture when all my stuff gets floated down the river". Luckily I keep my campsites tidy, so nothing else was lost to the water except a pair of boxers, a t shirt and my Gorillapod. The clothes were set out to dry and I had forgotten the tripod on a rock when contemplating a photo of me bathing. Hope they find their way to somewhere nice. At least I had a nice early start.

Otherwise, I have become totally oblivious to the passing of time. I was genuinely surprised yesterday when I realised it was sunday. Had someone asked me the time or the date, my best guess would`ve been "Umm, maybe July?". Same goes with the time. I usually wake up when it`s light, head out, skate untill it gets dark, eat and go to my tent. So it`s basically two times in a day, light and dark. A very pleasurable way of life, I could get used to this.

Other thoughts so far.

The Osprey backpack is worrying me, I doubted the starps from the beginning, and now they are slowly coming undone. The problem is that the buckles are loose and akward and the starps curl around them and chaff down. I`ll have to figure out something to counter this soon.

The Jack Wolfskin tent has been awesome, it has been very breathing and comfortable in the heat and lasted a few very hard storms. But the bag it`s packed into isn`t. It sucks. It`s very fragile, smallest scrape to a say tunnel wall and it tears. And the shutter system, while wery cunningly designed, just doesn`t work. Stuff keeps falling out. Just today I`d have lost my tent sticks if my iPod had been working. Fortunately(?) it still isn`t and I herd the noise when the the sticks hit the ground. I have now secured the tent bag with a lenght of string and hope it stays togehter.

First signs of shinsplits yesterday, due to walking so much with my other shoe being far more worn out than the other. No worries if the skating stays good.

The Pocari Sweat sports drink doesn`t keep you best. I had awfull cramps all over my body yesterday, due to the lack of salt in my body, caused by intense sweating. Those sports drinks aren`t doing their job. Luckily, salted and dried fish and beef jerky are widely awailable as are salted nuts. I`ve changed back to drinking mostly water and eating salty stuff to counteract the effects of sweating.

Japanese people are very friendly but do not speak english much... at all. I have gotten so bored with the engrish that I barely even notice it anymore.

I`ll better get going now, I`m aiming for Kuji today!

Mountain Madnnes At Hakodateyama

2009-07-14T18:15:00.000-07:00

I went to Mount Hakodate yesterday evening. The sunset view was certainly very scenic, pictures don`t really do it justice so I didn`t bother to take any. Actually I left my camera at the hotel and went to ride down the sucker. It was a rather incredible and dangerous experience too bad (or maybe actually good) that my ride was interrupted by security guards and I was driven down the mountain. They told me it was too dangerous and interfered with the buss traffic that was indeed very heavy.

I consired going back up and waiting till late at night to try again, but it started raining and the road was rather poorly lit. To compensate my defeat I went sliding down a 8 stories high parking garage and had a good time at that.

The two worst things in my life currently are:

1.A infected gum around my wisdom tooth. Annoying but not life threatening.
2.My iPod has gone completely catatonic. No more music unless I purchase a portable radio. Damn.

Music reminds of the night before yesterday! Music reallly is the great communicator. I was wondering around Hakodate with my skateboard in the evening and a array of guitars at a bar called The White Beatles. I promptly wandered inside and discovered much to my delight that it was in fact a open stage jam bar. Soon a bunch of musicians wandered in. The bartender occasionaly took up the drums or the bass. We jammed trough the night untill it was closing time at 02.00. Allthough we didn`t really understand each other linguisticaly, the music was understood by both parties and lots of fun was had. Awesome!

If you are a musician and/or like blues, jazz and rock`n roll, you should most definetly check this bar out! It`s a few blocks away from the Hakodate station, along the "main road" of Hakodate. If your`re coming from the station, just keep your eyes peeled to the right side of the road, you can`t miss it!

One Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

2009-07-13T03:20:00.000-07:00

I got my camera hooked up so here are some pictures.

The pictures are HUGE, this computer didn`t have any decent programs for optimising the images. Sorry about that, I`ll fix them when I get home.

My skateboard!

Some local delicacies. Needles to say, my hair was on fire and my energy bar was full after those.

From skateboarder to skateboarders. Japanese asphalt is REALLY smooth! And the hills are awesome!

Misc. Stuff

I`m Still Alive

2009-07-12T23:49:00.000-07:00

Yo! Sashiburi!

I`m writing this from a web cafr in Hakodate! I have now cleared Hokkaido island. I`ll stay at an hotel tonight and skate down the mountain Hakodate tommorow, if the weather allows me to. I`ll go trough the happenings on the way first.

Day 0

I began the journey by going to Toijala, Finland. From there I wen`t to the Powder Flower workshop where my board was being completed. After a lot of shaping it was finally completed at 03.30 am. 15 minutes later a got into an bus to Helsinki Vantaa airport. The next day I spent flying and wondering around Charles De Gaule airport. CDG is absolutely horrible.

Day 1
Was spent in Osaka waiting for my board. Good drinks and nice company

Day 2
Airfrance graciously paid for my cancelled flight to Sapporo and I got my board from Kansai International Airport. I flew to Sapporo where I stayed in a Capsule Hotel. Unless you like to sleep in a small pod separated from a middle aged japanese guy wathcing porn by only a thin bamboo sheet, I can`t really recommend this form of accodomation. I spent most of the evening outside tho, getting to know my new board. The asphalt in Sapporo (and rest of Hokkaido as far as I know) was absolutely fantasticly smooth. I nearly got lost cruising around the city. I allso found couple of awesome 8 stories high parking garages that I skated. Too bad i didn`t have my slidegloves with me and the harder Cult tires. That meant that I had to take it easy, accidental stand sliding isn`t nice.

I had some troubles with the board at the beginning, for some reason I constantly staggered while pushing speed. I soon understood that it was because the board was so low. Even lower than my Lush Spooky, because this Powder Flower has more subtle concave adn is a bit thinner. Low is ofcourse good when doing long distance and downhill skating. I could go on about my board for hours but I`ll leave that into another post.

Day 3
Finally time to do some real skateboarding. After aquiring a map of Hokkaido I kicked of from the Sapporo TV Tower (I only realised I had actually started right from the root of the tower only days later) and pushed trough the endless flat suburban area of Sapporo for about 20km and camped in a thick forest somewhere at the base of the mountain range

Day 4
The walking day. I trodded up the mountains for the whole day for nearly 20km of uphills in sunny weather. Hot and tiring work. I camped at the top of the mountains in a place called Boyanakayma. There was a shop and a closed ski resort. I was too tired to ride the hills that night and went straight to my tent. Luckily I interpeted the weather correctly and set my tent up with it`s weather proof outerlayer on.

Day 5
I woke up to the sound or rain. It wasn`t just a slight drizle, the whole mountain top was inside a rain cloud. Visibility was about 20 to 50 meters and rain came down heavily. No weather for downhill skateboarding. I huddled in my tent eating food and reading Dan Simmons`s The Terror. I really like Simmons`s books, especialy the Hyperion saga is... Unique. The weather remained moist but the asphalt dried up by the evening so I got down to business and really skated them hills. I got used to my board`s downhill cababilities at the quiet, about 1km strip that led to the closed ski resort. When the night fell and the traffic calmed down I skated down the route 230 that I had been following. And I mean really skated, without my backbag, with slidegloves. It was incredible. Endless downhill, smooth asphalt, stunning views. Whoa... Better than I even imagined. I slept the night at the same place and set out to

Day 6

Allmost uneventfull day. I made my way down the hill, about 17km of downhill.　Too bad that it was very hard work to skate it down with my backpack. Increased weight means increased inertia and that means braking is hard. My right shoe sole is all but busted trough. After the downhills came some flat groung that I cleared in nice weather. Then I fought the law (but the law won). A police officer stopped me at the side of the road. After some discussion I came to understand that Skateboarding is illegal in Japan (this is not true). His main concern was my place of residence for the night. He insisted on taking me there (I lied about staying at Lake Toya Onsen) with his car. on the threat of getting arrested and jailed. After about 3km of sitting in his car he luckily got some more important assignement from his radio and dropped me on the road. I then made my way to Lake Toya. Nice 6km downhill leading to a Cyampu Jo at the north shore of Lake Toya where i stayed for the night. I met some friendly elderly locals that showed me around and gave me a tomato. Domo Arigato!

Day 7
I made quick work of the about 15km from the camping grounds to the seashore. Last about 3km were nice downhills trough tunnels that actually had bicycle paths at the side. I must`ve blazed about 40km/h at best in those tunnels. I stayed the roof of a terraced tunnel since it was the only flat spot I could find.

Day 8
The rain day. It started to rain like 15 minutes after I left my campsite. Soon I was too wet to care anymore and decided to go on to Oshamanbe, 20km away. There I checked into a nice japanese style hotel. Not quite a ryokan but close. The place had a Onsen. After a hard push in the pouring rain, the experience of lolling in hot bath was incredible. It remainded me of the one time I got injected morphine intraveneously in a hospital, absolute bliss. The food was good beyond imagination aswell. I cleaned myself, my laundry and my bearings and set out early in the morning for what would be my longest push so far.

Day 9
The monster push. I cleared the whole coast today. About 70/80km of pushing. This country truly is the country of extremities. The trip so far had been only hills and mountains, today was only flat ground with the exeption of few railway overpasses, slight headwind but good asphalt and wide space at the side of the road. I saw a lot of rather rundown looking fishing villages. I went on untill i reached the mountains again, climbed few kilometers uphill, about 30km from Hakodate. The rain came then and forced me to stop in a thicket of the forest.

Day 10
The nightmare day. I woke up around 5 am and waited for the rain to end. As it did so around 7 am I set out to Hakodate. The weather kept degrading from tolerable to wet and windy to absolute horror. Head wind was so hard that even walking became nearly impossible. I had to push even on the steepest downhills, I was soaked to the bone, cold and miserable. I blasted some Manowar from my iPod and fought on. I finally reached Hakodate. It took me nearly 7 hours to make that 30km push.

Of course, right after checking into a hotell, the weather calmed down...

Phew. That`s about it. I try to get back with more detailed explanations of the highlights and some pictures later today.

Seagull Hotel

2009-07-04T17:56:00.000-07:00

I`ll go to Kansai airport soon an retrieve my skateboard and try to rebook a flight so Sapporo. I`ve seen a bunch of great engrish phrases here but I`ll just take a moment to tell about the customs inspection upon my arrival.

I heard that it is a hassle to get into Japan so I expected lot worse. Actually I only had to fill out to forms, other one about me stating my information, lenght of stay and location and the other form about my stuff.

The problem appeared when I had left the Location of my stay blank. The clerk started asking the name of my hotel with broken english. After a moment of badly understood explanations from one side to another I answered "I don`t know yet, I`ll go to Sapporo and seek out a Hotell there". The clerks face brightened as he answered "Ahh, Seagull Hotel! Please to write it down there"

Barely containing a burst of laughter I chose the way of lesser harm and obediently wrote down the imaginary Seagull Hotel as my place of residence for the trip.

I have now dubbed my Jack Wolfsking tent as "Hotell Seagull"

I`d post some pictures but this computer doesn`t have a usb port

Good tidings

2009-07-04T04:27:00.002-07:00

Phew. I got mail from Osaka airport that they`ve found my skateboard and I`ll get it tomorrow.

After a shower, shave and a fresh pair of socks I decided to make the best out of a grim situation and stop brooding. I set out to explore Osaka wich is a town that seems to be suffering from schitzofrenia and/or bipolar disorder. On the other hand it is ultra clean, ultra modern megacity. But every there are shady back alleys full of small bars, food places and weird and wild looking people. I prefer the backalleys

When the sun set at around 19.00 the city changed again from a bleak and hazy photograph into a HDR picture. Everything just lit up and started blinking. I`m writing this from a manga cafe while eating delicious Onigiri. Soon I`ll set out to check out some nightlife in Osaka and hopefully get lost somewhere interesting.

Tomorrow will see what happens to my route because of this delay.

I`m so Fucking Hostile right now

2009-07-03T20:54:00.000-07:00

Okay, I`m writing this froma a manga cafe in Osaka. Yes, Osaka, NOT Sapporo like intended. Seems like my worst nightmare came true.

Yes

Airfrance lost my skateboard.

My brand new custom made Powder Flower longboard is now somewhere and nobody seems to know where. I packed it according to the instructions from a very friendly clerk at the Helsinki airport and when I got　to Osaka where I was going to switch planes to Sapporo the longboard was nowhere to be found. I`ve sent a flurry of emails and hopefully it`ll turn out allright.

That aside, Osaka is a HUGE city. It`s quite hot and humid but not unbearably so. I`m gonna stay here (you can sleep in a Manga Kissa for about 20euros) atleast till tomorrow when they hopefully have a clue where my board is.

I`m as cool and composed as a irrate badger right now, hope nothing else goes wrong. Now I`m gonna grab something eat and a couple of beers to sooth my nerves. At least I`m not jetlagged as I slep the whole flight.

Conserning Equipment

2009-07-01T01:49:00.000-07:00

Now i have finally managed to pack my backpack and equipment in an satisfactory manner. The list of stuff is about as follows

Osprey Argon 70 litre rugsack
Jack Wolfskin Termite 1 Tent
A light sleepingbag
Self inflating travel mattres

Merrell Linear T-Shirt
Merrel Balance Technical T-Shirt
A sleeveles T-Shirt
Hoodie
Sports pants
Dunderdon P7 work cargo pants
Three pairs of boxers
Three pairs of hiking socks

Hello Kitty shower bag
Some soap
Some laundry detergent
Toothbrush
Toothpaste
Small microfibre towell

First aid kit
Thermal blanket

Trangia Kettle and Pan
Set of Wheels Cult Death Ray with Ceramic bearings
Extra set of bearings (Lush Night Riders)
Leatherman Wawe multitool
Lush Skatetool

Nokia 6210 Nav 3g Mobilephone
iPod Touch 16gt
Canon G10 camera

Sixsixone helmet (pink ^_^)
Lush slide gloves
Merrel Chameleon Cargo shoes

Here's a picture of my stuff packed and spread out

28.06.2009

2009-06-27T17:06:00.000-07:00

I Had a birthday, my oh my, I Turned in to an older guy, an older guy is what the girls will say.

You know, my birthday is the only date each year where both the month and day are different perfect numbers.

Also, I have less than week untill the takeoff, I have to admit, I'm quite nervous!

Working Man

2009-06-16T06:31:00.000-07:00

Phew, I'm pretty beat. It's been quite a Rush at work, constant overtime and long shifts. A trip like this takes a lot of money and getting that money at my 9 euros per hour salary takes a lot of overtime. My nightshifts are usually either 11 of 13 hours long and I really haven't had any time to write here or do anything else except sleep and work.

Nevertheless, stay tuned for updates, there will be some before the journey.

Message In Blood

2009-06-02T08:34:00.000-07:00

I'm delighted to announce that after contacting the Finnish Red Cross we reached a mutual agreement about a charitable purpose for my journey. I am now skating in order to promote blood donation.

Blood donation means giving some of your blood to be stored in blood banks from where it can be given to those who need it more than you do. Accident victims, people undergoing surgeries and so forth. It is my sincere opinion that if you EVER do anything that might lead you in a situation where you might need donated blood, be it downhill skating, parkour, climbing, going to the grocery store across the street or staying at home where most accidents happen, you should donate yourself.

It doesn't cost you anything and you get free coffee and sandwiches.

In Finland, the Finnish Red Cross is in charge of blood donation, as they are in Japan, USA and Australia for example. Find out where you can donate blood and do it as soon as possible.

About Me

2009-05-22T08:07:00.000-07:00

So Who Am I?

I'll lay down a couple of facts about me here

born in Finland, june 28 1985
height: 180cm (6 ft)
weight: 83 kg (182 pounds)

Do you really need to know anything else?

Oh well... umm... Well, I like longboarding, parkour, urban exploration, guitars, vodka, tractors and rock'n roll. Just to mention a few things. I live in Turku, Finland. Turku is a nice little city in the south western Finland. Finland is a nice little country in Scandinavia. While being a bit bigger than Japan, Finland only has a population of about 5,2 million people opposed to Japans roughly 100 million. I assume that will be confusing for someone accustomed to solitude like me. I mean, I'm a security guard working in night patrol in a city with about 200 000 people, to me five's a crowd. I assume I'll have a bit of a culture shock at the beginning of the trip.

Here's a picture of me chilling around and bombing the University of Turku hill with my Powderflower longboard.

What This Is All About

2009-05-12T14:20:00.000-07:00

Hello and wellcome to Skate Japan 2009

This blog follows my adventure trough Japan with a longboard in summer 2009. I try to post here as much as I can during the journey. As starters, here are some basics about my endeavor.

Where?

I'll be starting from Sapporo in Hokkaido, the northern main island of Japan and make my way to Fukuoka in the southern Japan. This is approximately 2000 kilometers (1243 miles) via the main roads, probably even more using the smaller sideroads.

A wery rough approximation of the route in red

When

The journey starts in third of july, 2009. The tourist visa allows me to stay in Japan for 90 days, so that is the time limit. If I were to travell 25 kilometers (15,5 miles) a day, it would take me 80 days to make it to Fukuoka.

How

With a longboard. A longboard is essentialy a big skateboard designed for travelling longer distances and riding down hills. There are many different kinds of longboards, read more from wikipedia if you're interested.

Longboard

I will mostly sleep in tent and cook my food on the road. So no fancy hotels and gourmet meals for me. There will allso be quite a lot of hiking involved and apparently even mountaineering.

Why

Why not? And the mountain roads in Japan look like a longboard paradise, we'll see about that.

Stay tuned for more info about equipment, conditioning and of course the actuall journey in July!

Sponsored by!

2009-05-11T17:04:00.000-07:00

Blog about an 2000km longboarding adventure through Japan

Coming Soon