# Japan or Canada



## a bag of it (Oct 2, 2011)

Everyone will probably say whistler, but I would do Japan all day. I have never been to either, but Japan is number one on my list of places to go. Whistler snow quality and quantity does not match Japan. Whistler definitely has the edge for nightlife. It comes down to what you want to get out of the experience


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## ridinbend (Aug 2, 2012)

Japan. I've been to neither but if I could go now I wouldnt hesitate a second and would go to japan


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## Unkept Porpoise (Aug 15, 2013)

Japan will probably have better snow but the mountains here in canada are pretty massive. We also speak English so there is that too.


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## hardasacatshead (Aug 21, 2013)

I've been to both and each have their pros and cons. I was in Whistler for most of February 2013 and Japan for 3 weeks in January 2013. 

Whistler is a great place to go if you want to board an enormous mountain (seriously, I was there for almost a month and definitely didn't see all of it) then party at night. The village is really fun and there are plenty of good pubs and places to eat. 

We stayed over at Blackcomb and rented an apartment while we were there for a pretty good price. It was only a 100m walk to strap in and ride down to the Wizard (I think that's what it was) and off you go. Really convenient and cheap if you've got a crew to split costs. 

The mountain's got a lot of varied terrain and excellent parks if you're a park rat. The snow was pretty piss poor when we were there, we only had a couple of big pow days but it was fun all the same.

For me though, the biggest downer of Whistler is that it's really fucking busy. I get the shits with lift lines and it was very rare that we'd wait less than 10 mins in line except to get on the gondy from the base of the hill. 

Japan is quite different in a lot of ways. You're guaranteed to have some epic epic pow days. March would be a good time, Feb would be even better. The snow's just so fucking nice. 

We were in Niseko, it's a great mountain also and you can access some pretty amazing side country through the gates. It's pretty damn big too, you can get some really long runs in if you want to go top to bottom and on a pow day you'll be smiling ear to ear the whole way down. 

The people in Japan are without a doubt some of the friendliest you'll meet. I fucking love those guys. I had so many drunken nights where we ended up smashing saké with Japanese guys who spoke zero english while we spoke zero Japanese. Fucking brilliant times. 

Japan does get a little mobbed by Aussies (I'm one myself), particularly Niseko. But if you're from the UK your likely used to seeing plenty of Australians and kicking yourselves for exporting all the hot women and keeping the pasty ones. It's not too bad but there are times when even I hang my head in shame at the behaviour of the 18-25ish year old crowd. 

Errr what else... the food on the mountain in Japan is the shit. In fact, the food everywhere is the shit. Beers are pretty cheap and there's a bunch of good spots in Niseko to grab a feed and a drink. 

Both Whistler and Japan seem to be on par in terms of cost so I wouldn't consider that a game changer. 

That's about all I can think about man. If I were to go on another trip to Japan (I should be saying "when I go") and I had the missus with me I'd like to try out Nozawa Onsen but for a boy's trip I think I'd hit Rusutsu. 

ETM is the guy in the know about Japan. He's driving a van around the joint making a general prick of himself now. 

I don't think you can go wrong with either spot. I would head to Japan though, it's just a different experience to going boarding anywhere else. Particularly if it dumps. That's a special thing. 

Enjoy dude.


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## ETM (Aug 11, 2009)

Go to canada


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## hardasacatshead (Aug 21, 2013)

ETM said:


> Go to canada


I see what you did there. :eusa_clap:


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## Argo (Feb 25, 2010)

Revelstoke or Nelson area in Central/Eastern BC.... 

Japan is on my bucket list but so where the above, I went to them and they were great places. We were there in April, March would have been better.


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## RagJuice Crew (Apr 8, 2012)

hardasacatshead said:


> I've been to both and each have their pros and cons. I was in Whistler for most of February 2013 and Japan for 3 weeks in January 2013.
> 
> Whistler is a great place to go if you want to board an enormous mountain (seriously, I was there for almost a month and definitely didn't see all of it) then party at night. The village is really fun and there are plenty of good pubs and places to eat.
> 
> ...


I would echo a lot of this but add one thing to it - if the snow is shit in Whistler there's still plenty to. There's a lot of snow making, parks are well maintained, there's a HUGE amount of terrain and run plenty to explore even if it's not at it's best and you miss out on the better stuff. Like now.. :angry: If the snow is shit in Japan it's shit. The mountains are neither big nor massive so it's the snow you are going for (because it's the best in the world bar none) so if there's none of that...

On the other hand, even if the snow is shit, you're in Japan. Different culture, different life, cool people and something much more different to your norm than Whistler. And much more raw.

Don't mean to be negative, just thinking worst case scenario. Because I was unlucky enough to land in to Japan a week after rain had washed away most of the snow and turned the rest to crud and mush.


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## ETM (Aug 11, 2009)

Japan has a short aggressive snowfall period, jan and feb. If you go in jan or feb you will get epic snow, anything after feb is the toss of a coin.


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## snowklinger (Aug 30, 2011)

*if ur gonna travel, travel, you got the passports and money...do it up....*

Japan, expand you and your friends' cultural sphere. Plan on not pandering to any picky eaters and go eat local while u are there.

For most of us Japan is harder to get to, and as you can see from the thread, most will agree that in a coinflip, Japan wins every time.

Fuck going somewhere they speak english and eat more of the brown food you would have eaten if you went to the pub after the snowdome. 

No offense whatsoever to Canadians but if you are gonna spend money to travel from England, Canada is like England with the badass sea to shining sea landscapes of north america including some rad mountains and all....

i could go on and on .....

/sushi chef/nipponophile

this has nothing to do with if Baldface is badass or AK heli drops are cool, those are retarded dickswinging internet comparisons. 

I live in denver and would move up to bc/vancouver area in a heartbeat, fwiw, or if working by a Canadian rockies spot...that too....but if Japan entered the equation...it would stand alone....

tldr: everyone, I mean EVERYONE, wants to go shred the bottomless stuff in Japan. Period.

Plus everything else about the place is awesome barring natural/nuclear disaster sigh.


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## hardasacatshead (Aug 21, 2013)

snowklinger said:


> Japan, expand you and your friends' cultural sphere.


Great point. My wife and I sold all of our shit except the house in December 2012 and travelled the world ever since. We finished up 1 week ago when we moved to London. Now I HAVE to go back to work because we're fucking broke. 

We steered away from a lot of the typical tourist destinations (still did plenty of the big ones though), drove a camper van around most of Eastern Europe as well as a reasonable part of the US, sailed a boat around Croatia/ the Dalmation Coast, built a school and a couple of houses with some Aussie mates in Cambodia... heaps of stuff I never thought I'd do. 

Now even though I really enjoyed the US - it really surprised me - most of my favourite memories are from Eastern Europe. We hiked up a massive mountain range to the only Bosnian Village to survive the Balkan war and were just randomly taken in by a little family, fed and watered and given a bed for the night just because it was freezing outside. 

I met a group of guys in Turkey who were playing soccer on the beach in this little village called Adrasan and they asked me to play. When they found out where I was from they asked my to teach them how to play Rugby because they all dreamed of going to the Manilla 7's to play Rugby. So I stayed an extra couple of days there and we played rugby on the beach, drank beer and ate all the food their wives/girlfriends kept bringing down from home. 

We went to a grand sumo wrestling tournament in Tokyo and managed to sit right next to this super rich dude who started up some sort of illegal gambling ring right next to us. So he adopted me and my mate Allen as his new best friends, got us hammered on expensive whiskey, Saké and fed us food all day long while we sat there collecting his winnings. 

Those sort of experiences are the ones I'll dine on forever. For me, the majority of them occur when I'm slightly outside my comfort zone, where I don't speak the language and the culture is completely different to my norm. 

So yeah, travel - it's eye opening. Money's no good to you when you're dead. :thumbsup:

/end rant


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## ETM (Aug 11, 2009)

Like ^^^^^^^^^


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## hender214 (Jan 25, 2014)

Cheers theres some awesome replies on this thread. I really want to go to Japan ive had a fascination with the place for as long as I can remember after my dad worked out there for a few months. The only issue is we will only be doing 10 days and I think I need more time for japan I would want to do more than just board.


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## atr3yu (Feb 15, 2012)

Argo said:


> Revelstoke or Nelson area in Central/Eastern BC....
> 
> Japan is on my bucket list but so where the above, I went to them and they were great places. We were there in April, March would have been better.


If you come back to Nelson hit me up! 

I have never been to whistler but interior bc has epic mountains. March can exploded here... two seasons ago we had 351cm in march, it was stupid deep.


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