The short career of two professional snowboarders, and too much japanese tv!

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Arrival Day
We had an early flight from Hiroshima this morning. Bit of a hassle getting from our hotel, to the train station on the tram, then onto the bus to the airport, then checking in. We had been a bit concerned about the 15kg luggage limit - which we were well over - but noone seemed to care very much and check in went quite smoothly.

Easy flight and got into Hokkaido about lunchtime to meet our Ski Japan rep. She had to meet a few more people so we had a bit of time to grab lunch and check out the airport - always exciting.

The bus ride out to the village was a good 2.5 hours long but was actually quite a nice ride. The roads were good and it was just fantastic to see all the snow. They'd had a few good days of snow before we arrived so everything was covered and it was just BEAUTIFUL.

About halfway into the trip we passed a huge lake. Bit of a strange sight to see this huge layer of water in the middle of fields of snow. Apparently some of the locals surf there - throughout the year. How awesome is that to be surfing in the middle of winter, in the middle of the snow! Go those Japanese surfers (that's for you Haems!)

We arrived at the village mid afternoon. Our apartment was right in the middle of the village. Not the most luxurious accomodation I've ever seen but ideal location and awesome heating. We were right near the main street and a short walk to the main lifts which was pretty awesome.

The afternoon was spent mainly sorting out stuff - laundry, picking up boards, getting out all the snow gear...

Day 1 -
We headed over to the 'Family' Run early this morning for our first lesson with our instructor Tracey. Another Aussie. She's a bit different than the instructors we had in NZ - more laidback and less technical - but it was nice to have the different approach and I think we were pretty lucky to have her.

I must admit that there was a bit of initial panic when we arrived and realised that this particular run had no magic carpet, that we were going to have to use the chairlift (the bane of my life in NZ last year!) and that the run had some steep, steep slopes!

Tracey was very understanding. And immediately made us get on the lift.

Remembering that Linda and I only learnt to board 6 months ago, and spent no more than a few hours on the slopes at Queenstown we actually did better than we anticipated. I'm not saying we didn't fall. Quite a bit. But by the end of our first lesson we were getting off the lift without stacking it, and getting down the run without falling over. So it was nice that we hadn't completely forgotten everything!

Admittedly after the 2 hours I was completely KNACKERED and had to go sleep for half an hour. It wasn't that I was that sore - but my body just went into shock from it all!

We took a bit of a break and headed back out in the afternoon for a few more runs, then another sleep.

The Ski Japan staff had organised for some welcome drinks at a local bar that night (mainly as an excuse for all of them to go drinking I think) so we popped along to that and sampled some of the local beverages but didn't stay too long. Drinks at the bars were actually pretty reasonable for ski fields but we discovered that the local supemarket (conveniently around the corner from our apartment) stocked a great supply of beverages. Of course a large array of Sake but also bottles of vodka for $11, rum for $10 and great wine for $5. Thankfully we hadn't bothered with duty free!

The supermarket Siecomart (nicknamed Pyschomart by locals) was actually a great source of entertainment. Think 7-Eleven stocked with face masks, 'modesty' towels for the onsen, ready to eat japanese meals, rows of instant noodles, and a variety of unidentifiable snacks and foods. Great source for the game "Eat this unidentifiable food!".

Day 2

Day 3 - Snowmobiling

Day 4 - Day off
Today Linda and I elected to have a day off from the 'stress' of snowboarding lessons. Actually we figured our bodies would appreciate the rest. Plus it would break up the week a bit and give us a day to hang out around the village. In reality we ended up doing errands for most of the day - laundry (which seemed to take HOURS!), eating (again - HOURS! Possibly because there is an essential need for multiple hot chocolates during daylight hours when you're at the snow), shopping(Linda needed some new goggles)....

It had started snowing the night before and continued most of the day so every time we went outside meant putting on multiple layers, then taking them on, then putting them on again... So it just made us even more tired than we were before! But it was nice to sit inside and watch the snow fall outside - so beautiful!

In the end I spent most of the afternoon watching Japanese TV on our made-up couch. Our apartment, though spacious, had a Japanese living room which meant on-the-floor seating. All very nice but it was just a little too hard to get up from the seats once you'd got down there. So we took all the spare pillows and futons from upstairs, loaded them onto the coffee table and made our own couch! Not the world's most comfortable seat but a VAST improvement from the floor!

Anyway despite knowing only a few words of Japanese I managed to spend several entertaining hours watching various Japanese dramas. All the actors seem to have been cast for their ability to overact (think Days of Our Lives and multiply it by 5.67 million!) and do those end-of-scene 'thinking' faces. I had no idea what was going on a lot of the time - which meant I could just make up my own storylines - and that was even more fun! My favourites which come highly recommended are:

1. Ok so I don't actually know what this one was called but its about some chick (who's very strange looking) who works in a factory but plays in a vollyeball team with 6 other girls from the factory. And they're all bad players. 1 of them is in a bikie gang. There's a love triangle with her male boss who's dating some other chick who's a bitch. And then mum owns a bar or something.

2. Antique - Again I have no idea what's this is really about. But this is the blurb from the TV station (its funny in itself!):

This is a refreshing, yet heartfelt comedy about the 3 very unique personalities (more than that, all 3 are good looking! - I didn't write that, it's part of the blurb), that work until the wee hours of the night at a small confectionery called "Antique." The story follows the romance, family life and friendship that these 3 men from different generations experience. Tachibana, the owner of a confectionery that likes hot-spicy food more than cakes; Ono, the superb party chef that has a mysterious aura, and Eiji, the ex-boxer who loves cakes that now works at Antique. (And also has very ORANGE hair).

A confectionery with a "flavor" not like most. Located in the middle of an ordinary residential area, "Antique" stays open until 2 a.m. Every single thing in the shop is antique, in fact even the sherry glasses that water comes in look like they would cost 50,000 yen. On top of this, all the sweets that are sold are unbelievably delicious. The thing that is most peculiar about "Antique" though is that all 3 of the men that work here are very handsome, and each has an interesting past.

It has some love triangles too and a security guy who becomes a waiter there but doesn't know how to work the coffee machine and won't take off his sunnies. He also does ads for Duke beer.

3. ANY Japanese TV ad. Again its always a test to see if you can guess what they're actually advertising. My favourites are a hot chocolate ad: a guy with a cheesy grin sings about Ko-ko-a. And one for Jogu-jogu.com I don't know what Jogu-jogu.com is but it has a good jingle and the girl looks so happy!

4. The game shows are good too. My favourite was Question Kid. The host has a bowl haircut and says "Question KI-TU!" a lot.

So much amusement, so little english!

Day 5 - Return to Boarding
This morning we got up for another lesson with Tracey. It had basically been snowing for about 36 hours straight so EVERYONE was out early to experience the powder. This was our first experience of boarding while it was actually snowing. And not only was it snowing. It was SNOWING. A lot. Very heavily.

Tracey decided that this was a good time to head up to the top of the mountain. We thought she was joking. I believe Linda's response was "Are you mental??"

But to the top of the mountain we did go.

And it was beautiful. Cold (about minus 13) and windy, but beautiful. It is just amazing to see miles of untouched snow and the trees laden with a layer of white icing sugar as far as you can see. With clear blue skies and the sun peering through. And soft flakes coming down (albeit rather heavily).

Unfortunately Linda and I discovered that we are definitely NOT natural powder boarders. The powder was up above our knees and it was hard hard HARD work. I think Linda and I fell more times in the first 2 minutes of that first run than we had done in our ENTIRE previous snowboarding career prior to that. And it wasn't the falling that was the problem. It was the getting up after the falling! You try getting up from the bottom of a snow drift with a board attached to your feet! After half hour we were absolutely exhausted!!!

Then Linda managed to have a massive stack on our second run and crack her ribs. I figured her trachea was still midline so she didn't have a tension pneumothorax and therefore was ok. And I landed badly on my left hand and cracked my thumb. Hopefully no bones broken. I can't say we improved tremendously throughout our lesson and I think all 3 of us got majorly frustrated with it all so it was a bit of a relief to finish up.

We did manage to head out again for a bit in the afternoon and do a few runs from the top of the mountain again but I had another massive stack and decided to bail and head back to the short runs again for a while.

Day 6 -
Linda and I were both in a REALLY bad mood this morning. We had both slept really badly - partly from the beanbag-like Japanese pillows and partly from all the falls the day before. Plus I think we were both a bit depressed and frustrated after our powder failure.

Thankfully the powder had settled a little and our runs this morning went MUCH better with MUCH fewer falls. Its so less tiring when you don't fall! I think Tracey was very much relieved as well - poor thing. Linda had remember to take her camera with us so Tracey got on filming duties and snapped some pictures and videos at the top of the mountain for us (and not all of them involve us falling over!!) It was actually kinda good to look back at how much we had progressed since we arrived. Maybe not quite professionals yet but definitely getting there...

It started snowing again in the afternoon and we ended up being a bit lazy and not doing too many more runs. Had a HUGE lunch at a little cafe down the hill run by this little old couple - lots of pasta and hot chocolate. Then spent the afternoon returning gear and packing.

Being Australia Day we tried our hand at staying up past 9pm. We went to our favourite 100 Yen Noodle shop for dinner, successfully missed the fireworks outside, and then went to Java Bar again to have a few drinks.

Day 7 - Departure day
Another bad sleep (Do NOT miss those pillows!) so we were both up early to pack. Got in another few quality hours of Japanese TV before our bus to the airport left. The bus ride actually went really quickly and was broken up by one of the kids sitting behind me throwing up for about half an hour. Both Linda and I turned up those ipods to hide the noise and avoid the 'sympathy-spew'!

The way the buses out of the village were timed we had a 3 hour wait at the airport before our flight. It was pretty busy with everyone leaving at the end of the week but we managed to talk our way onto an earlier flight to Tokyo - without a ticket and with excess baggage again - so we only had a bit of time to look at all the shops before we boarded.

We got all settled on the plane in time. Then they announced an hour's delay cos of snow on the runway. So we all got off again and they pulled out the BIG snow-removing runway machines. Not as exciting as it sounds.

In the end we weren't delayed by quite an hour but by the time we got back into Tokyo we had only managed to gain about half an hour from our original flight. We caught a bus (the Airport limousine to be exact!) straight to Shinjuku station and then to our Hotel Sunlite which just wiped us out so we had a late dinner again. But it was nice to be back in Tokyo. And much as I love snow it was also a bit of a relief not to have to worry about slipping on ice at every step...

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Photos

Berg apartments
Our home for a week