Ski Camp

When I hear the word ski I often think, "Hmm, I wonder what that is like." I grew up in the flatlands of Indiana and never went anywhere to ski before. Now that I live in a country that is 85% mountainous, everybody ski's.

We had our annual ski trip to Bandai from this last Tuesday through Friday. The plan was to arrive on Tuesday, ski on Wednesday and Thursday, and then you had the choice of skiing again on Friday, sightseeing, or returning home. Because I had my English class on Tuesday night, I left for ski camp on Wednesday. I took the train from Utsunomiya to Koriyama and was waiting for my final connection when a Japanese person asked me if I understood the announcement. I initially thought he was just being kind, so I said, "Yes." I then started looking around and all of the Japanese had concerned looks on their face. So then I humbly chased the man down and asked him what was happening. He told me the train was delayed because of strong winds and snow and it was stopped about 30 minutes away in Inawashiro, the city I was heading for. So I headed inside the station and waited and found out that they had no idea when the train would be able to come.

After about an hour I received a phone call from Joanna, Tokyo staff, who was coming to snowboard for one day with our group. She was also in Koriyama waiting for her next train which was an hour after mine and clearly neither had arrived. So we went inside and had a drink in Tully's coffee shop. Thankfully, Tomo drove to Koriyama to pick us up as the trains were canceled for the night.

Then Thursday morning arrived. My first day snowboarding ever (I decided to snowboard because almost everybody in the group snowboarded). So what happens, the group takes me up the first ski slope with absolutely no experience. There was no bunny hill experience for Alan. It took me about an hour to learn how to stand up on the snowboard without falling and to start to move down the hill. Finally, thanks to Tomo's great patience and instruction I made it down to the bottom of the first ski slope.

I then went inside to change into a larger boot and came outside and didn't see anyone I knew so I decided to go on the same lift and continue to practice. As I entered the lift I realized, this looks a little different. Sure enough, I got onto lift number 3 and not number 2. I then went up to the top of a much more difficult hill all by myself. Thanks to God I made it down the hill in about 8 minutes with only two falls. I then met everyone for lunch and afterwards a newer lift had opened that was closed in the morning because of the wind and snow. So we all went up this new lift which was the most difficult that they had open that day. On a easy, medium, hard, and expert hill setting, there is nothing like taking the hard on your second and harder on your third trip up the lift.

We reached the top to realize that the winds were howling with white out conditions. I couldn't even see the sides of the path. I made it down, somehow, without any problems and then decided to go back on the easier slope so that I could practice snowboarding instead of plowing snow the whole way down the mountain to reduce my speed.

By the time the day was over, I enjoyed my snowboarding experience and was unable to move any muscles in my body. The next day I went with Ruth Ann, Teppei, Yamao, and Emi to go sightseeing. We visited Hideyo Noguchi's museum, a famous Japanese doctor who is on the 1000 yen bill, fed the ducks, and visited Mother Buddha in the snow. It was absolutely gorgeous to see the scenery in perfect untouched snow.

Hopefully, I will have the pictures up in the next couple days from ski camp. I have put my crazy hair cut pictures online for your enjoyment. I have had so many remarks and laughs from random people as I also wore my dyed hair to ski camp.