Advance Cup, Japan 2010

• Loading the bus at advanced marketing
• Mike Miyazawa from Advance Marketing
• A girl in the crowd trying on some Anakie!
• Erin and Kalyn on stage during a press conference
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• Yukie being interviewed by Snowboarder Mag
• Yukie and Yuki
• Kalyn & Yukie at the Advance Cup
• Yukie wearing Anakie in the Lil Room fashion parade
• Jimmy Chilling with the Anakie girls
• MC Ryan Rausch... comentated the whole day in Japanese!
• Jimmy & Kayln
• Ingemar, Stefan, Peter and Jesse judging the Japanese riders
• Bento box lunch on the hill
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• Team Anakie! Erin, Kalyn and Yukie enjoying lunch at the advance cup
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• Erin and Yukie
• Amazing japanese Buffet! Shabu Shabu
• Delicious Raman noodles, thanks to Ryan's translating
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• The Kareoke bus!
• Kayln & Tom...tea party in the boys room
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• Another fantastic Shaubi Shabu dinner
• Erin & Kyre
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• Ryan and Pat signing auto graphs for some fans
• Erin with her new Japanese friends!
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• Ingemar and Erin in Tokyo, the begining of a long 22 hours
• A parade, at the oldest temple in Tokyo
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• Erin and Stefan in the garden outside the temple
• Yuki & Yukie taking us shopping
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• LUX Nightclub

Ohayo gozaimasu! Anakie is stoked to announce that for winter 2011, Anakie will be sold in Japan!
Over Easter this year Anakie designer Erin Height and team rider Kalyn Lepre were invited by Advance Marketing to visit Japan and join them for the Advance Cup. The Advance Cup is a contest and promotional tour of Japan promoting Anakie, Allian, Lib Tech, GNU and Roxy Hard goods. Thanks to Mike Miyazawa, his daughter Yuki and their team at Advance Marketing it was a fantastic opportunity for Erin and Kalyn to promote Anakie while seeing Japan for the first time . They had the best tour guides imaginable! Rode at beautiful mountains, ate delicious food, and travelled with amazing people from around the world!

ANAKIE LOVES JAPAN!

The week in Japan was during the Cherry Blossom festival, and the trees around Tokyo were stunning! The first day of the trip the girls had a look at the cherry blossoms, and met at the Advance Marketing offices in Scuba, to board the bus (Smile Perfect Drive) for a 5 hour drive to the first resort.

The first stop was Myoko Ikenodaira Resort, for 3 nights. They arrived in time to watch the end of the K2 contest and lap through the park. Yukie Ueda, the newest member of the Anakie team was judging the contest, so Erin was stoked to meet her! After riding they joined the K2 party and Advance welcome time, a press conference were everyone was introduced to the Japanese Media, and enjoyed a fashion show organised by Lil Room, Yukie’s company. Meeting Yukie was fantastic! Everyone told the girls what a legend she is in Japan, she runs a website, produces Japanese women’s snowboarding films, has her own brand of accessories and is about to launch sunscreens and lip balms! The fashion show she organised was fantastic and she was the star model wearing Anakie! We are so excited to have her on board, and learn from her experience about the Japanese market. She is a great endorsement to the Anakie brand!

The next day started with bento box’s for breakfast at 7.30 the food in Japan was incredible! The group of 10 Japanese riders and 16 overseas riders assembled at the Shirakaba course for the advance cup at 8.30. They resort had set up a fun course and the weather for the contest was a bluebird spring day with soft snow!
The Japanese riders were killing it all day! So fun to ride with! It was great for Erin and Kalyn to have a chance to ride with Yukie for a few hours. Check back as we update her profile in our team section! Lunch was a bento box on the hill, and then a rider demo from the overseas riders Advance had brought out to Japan.
The finals of the advance cup were after lunch, with Ingemar Backman, Stefan Karlsson, Peter Strom and Jesse Burtner judging. Two out of three flags and you got to go through to the final!

Kalyn and Erin were interviewed and photographed by Japanese Snowboarder Magazine, and filmed by Eri, from Lil Room.
We lapped all day through the smaller park and the tree runs! The awards ceremony was right before last call! A long but really fun day in the sunshine!

Dinner at the hotel was an amazing buffet and the girls tried Shabu Shabu, one of Japan’s most popular dishes, where you cook paper-thin slices of raw meet, seafood and vegetables yourself at the table on a hot plate. The night ended with a relaxing Onsen before lights out. A pretty much perfect day!

Day three was free riding, filming and photo shoots. The resort was open just for the group, the weather was not so clear but the snow was soft and it was fun to cruise through the trees. Kaitlyn Farrington was killing it with back 5’s and 7’s on the Jump, and hand plants all day!

For lunch Ryan took all the girls to the Ramen restaurant in the town, he is fluent in Japanese! Again delicious food!!

The next day was a travel day. After another bento box breakfast everyone loaded the bus and they drove another 5 hours north to Miyagi. Smile perfect ride turned into a Karaoke party bus! We had Krush’s rendition on Bonjovi, Kalyn serenading the bus driver Mr Suzuki, and one of Kato’s many performances!!

The drove to the Miyagi side of the Zao mountain rage, in a resort called Sumikawa. Passing through a big gate as they entered a sacred area in the mountains. The evening was filled with Round Pingis, a game of Ping Pong the Sweedish guys taught everyone and then won every time. Ninja, a game Kalyn taught the group, and more Karaoke! This time even Mike got up to sing Neil Diamond‘s Sweet Caroline, and a bit of John Denver! Krush and Ryan preformed ACDC’c Thunder struck until we were told they were too loud.
There were duets from Greece, Mari and Erin performing Avril Lavigne, Maribeth with some Bob Marley. The last song the girls remember was Stephan singing John Lenon’s Imagine before they bounced to bed leaving the die-hard karaoke singers to hold down the mike.

The girls woke the next morning to what looked like a windy cold day, but cleared up! They were lucky with the weather the whole week! It was a day of park riding at Miyagi with the Japanese stores that Mike had invited, followed by a lunch party and then several speeches, introductions, and time to sign autographs.

Erin rode with a group of Japanese girls all morning over the baby park jumps and the boxes, so fun, they were all so nice and so stylish! The day ended with some rad tree runs, Kyre stomping a cliff drop! Another onsen, and they were back on the bus to TOKYO!!!!

In Tokyo Erin and Kalyn had breakfast at the hotel then left for what turned out to be 22 hours of crazy Tokyo fun! They saw the oldest temple in Tokyo, and a parade as it was Budda’s birthday. They met Yuki, Yukie and Mari for some shopping in Shibuya, hung out in Harajuku, went to see the cherry blossoms at night, ate curry for dinner with Stefan and Ingemar, then headed to Roppongi to LUX nightclub for some dancing, drinking, and saw some sumo wrestlers!

This was an amazing trip, Thank-you so much to Mike and Yuki for having both Erin and Kalyn! Japan was truly an amazing place with a beautiful culture. The girls can’t wait to visit Japan again!