Day 34: Skiing in Nagano

Last night, was the night that Brian and I left from TKC to go this Ski/Snowboard Tour 2006 in Nagano. After taking our dinner, we head of to go Yoyogi Park just around Harajuku station of JR Line and Meijijingumae of Chiyoda Line at ... take note ... 10PM.

So from there, we met up with Jessica and her officemates. We meet new people like Jen, Rodney, Neil, Kelvin, Jesselee, Boyet, and more. So sorry, not very good with names. :D

From there, it was a 5 hour travel by bus. But since we had 3 20 minutes stops/break, it took us around 6 hours to get to Nagano. Pretty far but the place was totally for skiing. As we travel to get there, the place became colder and colder as snow began to pile up all around the place. And just before leaving from Yoyogi Park, Charlie, one of the Japanese organizers, gave us a sort of precaution when getting out of the bus during the break. He's not that bad looking but he can do better. But what kinda made him appealing to me was when after he gave the instructions in English, the people were saying him to say it in Japanese. And that's when I really paid attention to him. Hehehe.

We stayed tha Kijimadaira Kogen Hotel. The room that was assigned to us was the traditional Japanese room. Kinda weird but the experience was nice. It was just plain tatami on the room proper. We got to have the chance to make our own bed just like the way Japanese people do. In our room, there were 7 of us namely me, Brian, Jesselee, Boyet, Kelvin, Jay (Rachel's batchmate in AOTS), and Rodney.

Arrived at around 6:30AM, assigned to our rooms, got our ski shoes ... boots more like it and ski wear (which by the way we looked like the power ranges only having the same color), had a quick introduction or briefing ... then off to Makinoiri Snow Park. And thus the skiing began. :D

My gosh, the ski gear was heavy ... considering walking in these ski boots wasn't hard enough. But weird is that even though how cold it was, with just a shirt and our ski wear, we didn't felt the cold that time. We were actually even sweating as we were learning how to ski. Hehehe. It may look easy on tv but believe me, it's not. And where the hell was our instructor? :( We were supposed to have one, which would last for 2 hours, but unfortunately we hadn't. Only the ones doing the snowboarding had. So a fall here, a fall there was basically took most of our time. Hehehe.

Basically we got to do some skiing just around the bottom of the lift ... practicing what we've learned. And so after lunch at Donbori, we tried to go to the beginner's course. So we rode the ski lift going up ... which by the way was pretty far and high but not that steep so it was okay. And gosh, it took me and Jessica like most of the afternoon just to go down ... once. Man, it was so hard. The others was like in there third or fourth time ... us, we were still around half way. Huhuhu. But at least we tried. We just lacked the skills to do it directly. Hehehe.

For dinner, we again had another unique experience. We were the ones to heat our food. The food was placed in like a clay stove then we'd light the candle below it to heat the clay to heat the food. Hehehe. :D

Afterwards, we were kinda beat and since the fireworks was cancelled, I decided to take a bath before going to sleep. But the bath they had was only either ofuro or onsen. But since the onsen was situated outside and it was really cold and kinda tired, I just opt for the ofuro. My plan was just to take a hot shower and that's it. Nothing else. :D

So inside the ofuro, while undressing, Kelvin came in. So a smile here and there then I immediately went inside. No way was I staying long outside. I didn't even talked to him much. Kinda weird that time coz we kinda liked knew each other but not that well but still. Then inside, while taking the shower, Charlie came in but he didn't showered. He just cleansed himself then dip in the ofuro bath. Then I switched to another area because my shower was only emitting cold water. And that's way too cold for me. After finishing my shower, there was a guy that invited me to take a dip. He also invited his friend. So I joined them. And we talked about, introduced ourselves and chatted for a while. And that's how I got to know Bruce and Ron. :)

Lying down on some foams and sheets just above the tatami floor to sleep, wasn't that bad. Or I was just so tired that day to complain. Hehehe. I guess the effect was good because I could already here Brian snoring that time. Hehehe. :D