Decided to upgrade my jacket to one ‘compatible’ with my pants – the zip interface in particular. The Burton White Collection Puffy Jacket is currently heavily discounted – I managed to purchase mine 55% off the retail price, about 14,000 yen.
As always, the size is just a little small (L size) but I have little choice living in Japan. It is however, much bigger than my last Jacket – as my wrists would be exposed all the time.
The jacket is really warm, and fairly comfortable. The only issue I had was with the underarm zips, they would be almost impossible to zip close without taking the jacket off. The zips would always get stuck in the netting. It also gets dirty very easily, obviously because it is white, but there were no other colors available in the store.
I now look like a zebra, everything I wear is black and white.
Have been boarding a lot more this winter. I still want to go two or three more times, but it looks like the warmer weather is already upon us. Below is a list of all the gear I take when snowboarding.
1. The Board. I picked this up cheap from the winter sports festival in Kaihin Makuhari two years ago. It’s served its purpose of being a beginner board for me. Ill be investing in a better board come next season.
2. Bindings. My original set came with the board, but these broke after one season, so I bought the Burton Freetyle bindings for this year. Much, much better than the previous ones.
3. Boots. Again, I started out with a budget pair when I bought my board. These were fine but would cause immense pain around my ankle bone after an hour or so. So I bought a new pair last month. It was a toss up between Burton (cheaper) and Head (More comfortable) – I went with the Head BOA Classic Black.
Unfortunately the Head insole/liner (inner boot) seams split after the first time down the mountain. Kind of inexcusable for a new pair of boots. I contacted the Head guys over here and they were happy to repair them but I would have been happier if they replaced them with a new pair.
4. Gear. Just a standard set of clothes and some protection. I have Knee pads, Helmet, and ass pads for protection. Clothing wise, its just a standard snowboarding jacket and Burton Poachers for pants. I also bought some cheap wrist guards for the big jumps, but haven’t tried them out yet.
Looking forward to going again this weekend. Hopefully it will snow sometime this week.
Not quite so new as I got it Christmas, but I have been playing around and taken a few shots around 300mm. I have found it hard to get decent shots of animals with a low ISO because of the maximum aperture size. It does however work fairly well for taking photos of the moon:
Bought a new Pentax k20d camera this weekend. Managed to get it for a big discount as it was the only one left and it was a floor model. After doing some research, it turns out I should – and I use the word should, not need (my wife would object otherwise) get some decent lenses.
Included with the kit was a 18-55mm lens. Many people have indicated that a 50mm prime lens is essential for good quality pictures. It might be a while until I can afford some decent lenses, but I can play around with what I have for now. I also ordered some lens filters to play around with. I got a polarizing filter and a macro filter (I know a lens is much better, but I can’t afford it) from DealExtreme.
Went out over the weekend to take some pictures of the surroundings – uploaded some to iStockPhoto. Hopefully they will be accepted and I might be able to make back some money.
