First Impressions Review of WheelShields – Mudguards for a Longboard

First impressions summary PROS: WheelShields – mudguards (fenders) for a longboard – are a game-changer. Commuting by skateboard on wet roads doesn’t mean road grime on your pants, shoes, and deck anymore. If you’d rather skate, even after a downpour, and arrive at your destination clean and dry, these do...

Jozankei Nature Park in Winter (Day 2)

Last night, Haidee and I and Haidee’s sister stayed the night in a yurt at Jozankei Nature Park in the foothills of Sapporo City. Despite the interior of the yurt only being separated from the walls of snow surrounding it by a thin layer of canvas, it was a warm...

Jozankei Nature Park in Winter (Day 1)

Haidee’s sister Kylee was in Tokyo on business. Friday last week was a public holiday. Which is all to say the prerequisites for a quick long-weekend jaunt up to Sapporo were lined up for Kylee. Haidee and I decided to make it count for her. The mission was to try...

Takino Suzuran Hillside Park in Winter (Sapporo, Japan)

I spent most of today wondering why it had taken us three years to visit Takino Suzuran Park, on the outskirts of Sapporo. This gargantuan park, 395 hectares of it all, is a national government run park. In winter it is free to enter, and is a treasure trove of...

Snowshoeing near Hoheikyo Onsen (Jozankei, Hokkaido)

Sometimes we forget how majestic the nature is here in Sapporo, so close to home. Within a 40 minute drive, a prepared individual can enjoy some impressive hills, made all the more beautiful by the annual winter snows. So I organized a short snowshoe trip for the local Hokkaido International...

Adventures

Across the Eurasian Continent by Bicycle

From July 2006 to March 2007, I cycled 12,000km from Japan to Switzerland. Read the journal here.

From June 2007 till November 2008 I skateboarded 12,159km across Europe, the USA and China, crossing the Atlantic Ocean by Yacht. The record still stands 5 years later. First person to skateboard across China, first person to skate across the United States solo and unsupported.

From April 2011, my wife and I live in Hokkaido, the northern-most island of Japan. This is a cycling/snowshoe/hiking/skiing paradise. See those adventures here.

Pre-Departure (148 days): Website Finally Running

A small hill on the way to London has finally been surmounted. Rob has integrated his site into a content management software package called WordPress. The beauty of this, you see, is that when he needs to update or edit something on his website, all he needs to do is …