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Published: March 25th 2006
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Need I say more??
Note the way everything matches (apart from the essential pink beanie). Most people I know have these dreams of doing exciting things or seeing exotic places before they die, be it packing fish in Alaska, watching the Moscow circus in Moscow, seeing a broadway musical, jumping off the bridge at Bloukrans or taking their first road trip down to Cape Town... For me, one of those dreams was snow skiing in the Alps. And this week, I realised that dream! WOW! I can't believe I can actually say that! No, I didn't pop off tho Europe for the week... I was in the
Japan Alps, frolicking in soft powdery snow and flying down the slopes, ski poles in the air, mouth wide open, catching snowflakes and, at the same time, grinning like some psycotic child. Heaven. In short: THE LAST FEW DAYS RANK AMOUNG THE MOST EXCITING, TIRING AND PERFECT IN MY YOUNG LIFE.
We took a night bus across the country to Akakura Onsen, Mount Myoko, which is near Nagano, where they had the winter olympics a few years ago. My friends prodded me awake in the early hours of Tuesday morning, so I could catch my first few glimpses of 4 metre high snow drifts through the gap in
Asagohan ish...
Before: Pre skiing and all in one piece... Still naive and protected...
(Pic by Erin - 5th member of the expedition) the bus curtains. They were like shimmering white icecream cakes piled up along side the road. From then, things just kept getting better and more exciting!
Our accomadation was an experience in itself....not your average 3* hotel filled with international tourists, by any stretch of the imagination! It was a Japanese Inn, catering largely for university students etc who need a cheap place to stay while on a budget ski trip... Hey, that's pretty sums up us! Only, we aren't Japanese, which made us an automatic spectacle by virtue of staying there...I'm not quite sure who was the biggest novelty: Us or the snow? It was the tackiest, oddest place I've stayed in, in my life, but there was definately no lack of atmosphere. Everyone was there for the same reason: for the snow and a good time! There was much laughing, shouting and general skullduggery through the night. Amoungst all that the title for this blog emerged. Don't ask, you won't understand unless you were there.
To give you an idea of what the Inn was like: the bathing facilities consisted of basins and mirrors in the corridors outside the rooms. There were also gender separate Ofuro,
Rent-a-Pants
All kitted out in the 'lobby' fed by the water from the actual mountain onsen, and since this establishment mainly attracted the patronage of guys, we pretty much had the girl's Ofuro to ourselves. Four naked gaijin girls, and lots of hot water... Perfect to relax our tired musles after a day's skiing! Levi had to brave the men's Ofuro by himself, but I kinda envy him since he got to meet some interesting naked Japanese boys! The rooms were tiny, six mat tatami rooms... only I don't think I could really call them tatami rooms coz the tatami was plastic! However, the futons were warm (though, the fact that 5 of us shared one room, may have been a contributing factor)and the dinner (served promptly at 5.30 sharp) was delicious.
We hired all the relevant downhill skiing gear for the first day and set out in search of the begginner's slope in our rent-a-pants. The slope wasn't so easy to find, it turns out. After mucking about at the bottom of the mountain for a while, I talked 3 of my slighty less confident mates into riding a ski lift to the top. Let me say now, that I had the unfair advantage of
Action
Proof!!! (mis)spending a large portion of my childhood riding down anything I could find on some sort of craft including sand dunes, waves, grassy hills, steep tar roads, bunk beds, you name it... To put it simply, skiing came fairly naturally to me (much to the dismay of my friends).
We did consider formal ski lessons for a few moments, but soon realised that it would be ever so slightly pointless to pay for lessons that we could not understand... Instead, we got a few pointers from an older, wiser, more experienced Japanese man at the top of a particularly scary ski slope.
I braved the that particular slope solo, since my mates realised just how steep the big the slope really was. As usual, kamikaze Kim didn't quite grasp the concept of cause and effect... Despite falling so hard that my boot came out of my ski, totemo tanoshikata desu, and it was breathtaking and sooooo fast! Definately the most adrenaline-filled, blood-pumping fun I've had in ages!
Day 2 dawned clear and crisp, and with it came a new challenge! SNOWBOARDING! Once again, an opportunity to fulfill a lifelong dream! It turns out that it was not
Snow Fall
Our first evening - snow falling - view from our window. quite as easy to fulfil this dream, as the downhill skiing dream... Stopping a snowboard isn't so easy, let me just tell you, however, I was determined to enjoy the benefits of gravity and speed from the start and found an easier way to stop my board. I'd like to call my oh so smooth move 'aimforasoftlookingsnowdriftandcollidewithit'. By the end of the day I did manage to work out to stop, turn, go too fast, go too slow and so on, though it took a lot of tumbling about and wallowing in the snow to work this all out. Erin, Levi and Jacqui opted to master the art of bum-boarding. This was even more entertaining for the locals... Erin the tiny, bright yellow torpedo flying down the mountain, followed closely by Jacqui and Levi in their stylish rent-a-pants, who both perfected the art of draggingyourbumattheperfectangleinordertochangedirection. Rifka and I did not quite get the hang of bum-boarding, and felt much safer in the upright position on our snowboards!
We also took a morning to photograph the scenery (note that this was the only morning of unclear weather...) and explore the weeny lil town we were in, and quickly came to
Hoteru wa totemo chisakata desu!
And this was without the 5th futon out! Note how little of the fake tatmi you can see! the conclusion that there isn't much to do besides ski and eat crepes. And boy were those good crepes! Think ichigo-kureemu-choco (piles of whipped cream, strawberries and hersheys chocolate sauce) and other variations of equally decadent fare. Yum yum. Just as the thought crossed my mind that we should have bought a 3rd ski pass, a thick fog set in and chase everyone off the mountain, and anywho, our musles were soooo stiff at this stage from previous two day's action, that I don't think any of us would have managed to do up our snowboard boots! Even lifting my camera was a chore!
So that was that. Spring break was a blast and I'm very reluctant to go back to the books on monday, but on the bus home I could not help smiling because at least I have the memories of making my first snow angel, throwing snow balls and attempting a snow man (more like a snowblob). The view from the ski lift of the spectacular mountains, dusted in icing sugar, is forever imprinted on my mind and I will often think of standing on top of a snow-covered mountain eating ice cream with my wonderful
Rock!
Cold Air Guitar... new friends!
Next time you sit and think, "oh, someday it will be wonderful to be able to do this or that", stop dreaming and start planning, coz it's closer than you think! Hello! I'm 19 and I've already done what I was hoping to perhaps maybe do someday when I'm rich....
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Graham
non-member comment
ahhh
ahh kimmy i'm so jealous, one day when i'm a big boy i will do all the things i want to do and proballu some i dont. luv ya and miss ya.