Indoor Skiing in Xinzhuang!

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I went skiing for the very first time in my life...and it was here in Shanghai of all places! I have always been pretty terrified of skiing because when I was little, one of my friends had a skiing accident & came back with a black eye. So that image always stuck in my mind.

ahah....well, I actually had a fun time & I'm glad I finally tried it! It was indoor skiing, so it's way easier. But it was a good place to get started & to not have to endure the wind whipping into your face.

The indoor skiing site was here in the Xinzhuang area, where I live. It's called the Shanghai Yinqixing Indoor Skiing Site. Details from their website: "It covers an area of 100,800 meters . The skiing slop is 380 meters long and 80 meters wide. The thick of snow reaches 50 cm. The building has a perpendicular height of 42 meters as high as a 14-floor building. The skiing slope is divided into three segments."

The "snow" was made of very grainy pieces of ice. It felt very strange to walk on it.

Anyway, the ticket fee (which was less than 160 RMB) included the ski equipment & a bag of winter clothing---though Lizzy said the equipment was very old school. I'm glad they provided some winter clothing so I had some extra layers because after a while inside the ski area, I felt like I was freezing!! They also gave us these plastic flip-flops to wear around the locker room and into the ski-equipment room. The facilities were quite decent. You had to take your skis off in order to get to the top of the lowest hill...so we decided to go to the upper hills (and Lizzy & G went to the very top) where you can take a rope tow to go up. The only thing was that there was always a line-up for the rope tow & it was pretty difficult to get the disc thing between your legs.

There were lots of children skiing and lots of Chinese people there. Most of the Chinese people were learning to ski; most of them stayed near the bottom hill. Lizzy had noticed from a previous ski trip in Harbin and again in this indoor site that Chinese people tend to just go straight down the hill---crazily fast---and they don't know how to stop. SO, Lizzy taught me some of the basic moves so that I wouldn't be flying down the hills uncontrollably. She taught me how to make a pie with my skis so I can slow down...and how to zig-zag down the hills (instead of going straight down)...how to put on & take off my skis by myself (which was actually kind of difficult).

I know my brother was quite skeptical & thought that I would be plowing into people...but I only half-fell once!! ONCE! Lizzy said I did really well for my first time. 😊 hehehe

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Photos

sporting some chinese ski wear
this picture was taken when we were heading towards the first hill....and I didn't know how to turn around quickly with my skis on so I'm standing backwards.

me skiing!
i just got off the rope tow...getting ready to go down the hill