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Published: March 6th 2012
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Well it’s day 2 in Nozawa Onsen Japan and I’m differently feeling my age!! Snowboarding uses some muscles you never knew you had…
Yesterday was a great day, even though my 3am arrival meant I only got about 3 hours sleep in a proper bed. 7am breakfast was on with bacon and eggs plus more toast with Vegemite which every table had one jar sitting on it (can’t half tell an Aussie owns this place haha). After breaky it was off to get kitted up with a board at the rental shop, which is where Mark the owner of the of the hostel was. Had a bit of a catch up plus gave him the big jar of Vegemite I promised I’ve bring up for him, he was stoked…
Off to the slopes for the first time I go, by this time I think it was around 10am. Luke one of the helping hands at the hostel gave me a lift down to the first chair lift which saved me a bit of a walk. So it was judgement time, thinking back to the last time I strapped on a board was roughly about 5
years ago!!! So I had no idea how this was going to turn out. Up the lift I went and jumped off the top, strapped in and here goes nothing… To my surprise I pretty much took off where I finish 5 years ago, a little rusty but moved down hill at a good pace. So that was the first run and feeling pretty good I went off to the main Gondola.
This is where I met Heloyuki (not how you spell it but how it sounds, no idea how to spell it!!) and Mika, 22 yr old couple that live in Nagano. With once again very limited English we managed to get along and have a few laughs. It was really cool because they let me join them going down the runs, this comes in handy when your trying to learn where each runs takes you because this place it HUGE, nothing like Hotham back home. Taking photos, going down runs and a couple of stacks in there for good measure it was lunch time. We all had lunch on the mountain in a little restaurant, once again having some Japanese with you when reading menus
is priceless. While eating I was teaching Heloyuki and Mika a bit of English and about Australia, showing them pictures of our beaches and how hot it gets there, this blew their minds… They loved my new flip wallet, this little thing is going to be the best entertaining tool when meeting people. With our belly’s full we hit the slopes for a few more runs.
3:30pm rolled on and we were all knacked so it was time to call it quits for the day. With an exchange of emails we said our goodbyes and went to our accoms. Back at the hostel it was so good to plea the snowboard gear off, it had been a big day. Having relaxing on my mind I made a bee line for my first Onsen to be had. The nearest Onsen is only 100m away which is awesome because any longer I think I’d turn into an ice block. At the Onsen I remembered the protocol from my last visit. No shoes on the wooden boards, shoes in the bottom compartment, clothes in the top compartment, all clothes off, walk into the Onsen and wash your whole body before
getting in, once all that is done it’s jump in, boil and get out 30secs later haha. Nah it’s not that bad but it is freaky hot!! You can sit in there for a few mins then get out, sit on the edge for a bit before once again getting in to cook you inner organs.
Back at the hostel I was drained, the Onsen is so relaxing it drains it at of you. In my room a laid on the bed with the laptop on my chest and before FB could load up I was out like a light…
12hrs later I wake and it’s a new day, damn I must have been tired. Today it was French toast with another bit of toast with you got it Vegemite on it. This morning the mission was to get some food from the grocery shop. This is as you’d imagine very interesting considering I couldn’t read one label on everything in the whole shop. So with my fingers crossed I got some juice, apples, 2min noodles and some tiggy stix (I love these things). Back at the hostel and starting to feel the aches
as a result of the big day of snowboarding yesterday I decided to kick back a bit and edit a few photos I took before heading back to the slopes. Photoshop is doing my head in at the moment but I pretty happy with the end result considering I’m just guess.
Back to the slopes and it was a bit slushy today, little harder to board through. On the other hand the sun was out and was a great chance to rip the camera out and snap a few awesome shots. Other than that not much happen today, trying to take it easy and not go too hard too quick, I’ve got 2 week of snowboarding to survive!!!
So that brings me to now sitting in the lunch room having a juice while editing photos and updating this blog. Think it’s time for a beer, Onsen and watch the cricket.
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