Category: Asia

Yesterday was a beautiful clear day. After my morning ski, I decided to forsake my Canadian bath soak and check out the view from the top of the gondola.

Unlike most, I went up with no skiis! Although there is a green run down, I had heard there was a patch of ice near the start and I knew it would freak me out. Rather than ruin a good thing, I thought it a good idea to leave my new ski confidence intact.

I climbed into the gondola carriage with a Japanese lady and her two young sons. We had a stilted conversation about where I was from (my Canada beanie causing a bit of confusion). Her boys didn’t understand much English but were able to politely say hello when their mum explained I was from Australia where the kangaroos and koalas are!

This got me thinking……… are we still going to have koalas in the future? A symbol of Australia that has been so badly effected by the bushfires. Everyone back home seems to be doing as much as they can to ensure we are. There are some heartwarming stories of donations coming in and people making pouches and jumpers etc for injured wildlife. I am sure too, the zoos of Australia will have a job ahead with breading programs.

I had wondered in my ‘Australia is burning’ blog if I would see evidence of global warming here in Japan. As it turns out, there most certainly is. It is still quite ‘warm’ here for this time of the year and snow came much later than usual. One of the staff here at Club Med told us of how one week before the season started and paid guests arrived, they had had no snow at all.

A traditional Japanese healer was called to the resort. They performed a snow ritual (sounds like a rain dance!). Apparently some of the new staff were rather sceptical, but sure enough the next morning, snow fell for the first time.

As I reached the top of the gondola and looked out, I wished I could somehow scoop up all the extra snow now and dump it on Australia. Or perhaps send the Japanese healer down under. Imagine what a dump of snow could do to those fires!

The healer’s work here, is truely stunning……

I definitely picked the best day to check out the view. It was a lonely ride back down in the gondola, but a safe one! Incidentally, the two little Japanese boys didn’t seem to be too concerned about the patch of ice or long, steep run ahead, they flew off down the maintain, barely pausing to take in the view!

TTB

For days 3 and 4, I have developed a new routine. I love it so much I might stick to it for our last two days.

As I mentioned in my last blog, I have progressed to the Club 2 level. We are now doing wedge/parallel turns and working on our body movement. Today we even went up chair lift two!! I am super proud of how I have been going. I can control my speed (mostly) and turn ok, my movement up and down is getting better and honestly it is all feeling pretty good.

After skiing down my longest ever run today, we paused before a steep bit. Our instructor said ‘Ok guys, it is time to pick up a bit of speed, I know you can all do it and we need the speed to get across that flat at the bottom’.

I was terrified! At first my head said ‘no way, I will just go slow’, but then as I started downwards I realised the instructor was right. I relaxed into it, started to gain speed, turned a couple of times and then skimmed across the flat. It was so much fun!! I had a big grin on my face (not that anyone could see it under my neck warmer!!).

It really was a great morning, but dam does this skiing business hurt! My legs are aching and at times screaming at me to stop. My thighs burn as I turn and turn, wedging and wedging. My Achilles ache from the constant stretch in the boots. Several times I have thought to myself….. dam I should have trained for this. But, yesterday I found my solution.

Instead of skiing all day and getting jelly legs, I ski until lunch, enjoy a lovely meal and then head to the pool complex. Today, little miss 9 also accompanied me (she is exhausted). We jumped in the pool, swam a few laps, then played a little waterpolo. Then we went outside into the snow and into the Canadian bath (yes in our bathers).

There had been a little bit of snow this morning, but as we arrived in the tub, it started to really fall. I don’t know what temperature the tub actually is, but it is really very hot.

Imagine if you will, sitting in a hot, round, wooden tub, with your head out and snow falling. It was so weird, your body is so hot and your head and ears cold. In fact we had snow settling in our hair and on our noses. Miss 9 loved it and my aching legs loved it! It really is an awesome experience!

Meanwhile, the boys were out on the slopes in the middle of a snow storm carving out their ‘c’ and ‘s’ turns. Both even making it up to the top of the gondola. Sounds like they had a great afternoon, but I know where I would rather be!!

This afternoon was at times a bit of a white out, so here’s hoping for another great morning tomorrow. Only two more skiing days (sad face).

TTB

Day 2 of skiing was awesome. It started with a little review of the magic carpet. This was a great place to warm up and have a chat to your fellow ski students. An astonishing 80% of the guests here at the moment are Australian (this is unusual apparently) the remainder are mainly Japanese, Singaporean, Korean or Taiwanese.

The instructors are from all over the world, today ours was Korean. He started to explain (with a lot of hand signals and demonstrations) what he wanted to teach us for the day and then we were off to chair lift one.

What followed was a day full of giggles, wide eyes and the beginnings of burning legs! We had everything happen; from falls, to people heading into the scrub for a tree hug, a lost ski on the chair lift and an amusing introduction to a button lift (This is where my limited experience in NZ came in handy, I knew you are not meant to try and sit on the button!).

All the while, our instructor stayed cool and calm. At times his eyes widened in surprise or even alarm at some of the things that happened. He paused thoughtfully and then went off to help fix the situation. When it was sorted he would return to the group and brightly say ‘Ok, let’s go!’

Everyone else’s experience became your experience. We learnt from each other. We watched people doing well and tried to emulate it, we watched people doing things wrong and tried hard not make the same mistake. The advantage when something went wrong, was we had the chance to look around while our Instructor sorted it out.

I saw my daughter several times wizz past me in her Mini Club group. She would wave and the others in my group were astonished this was only her second day on the slopes. My son also passed me on the snowboard, making some cool hand signals and carving up the snow. I did see my husband once or twice but mainly he was further up the mountain.

What was clear in every group we came across, was how attentive and patient the instructors were. Nothing was too much trouble to fix and they were constantly giving you tips to improve. In fact, everyone on the mountain was so polite and helpful.

Only once did I see anyone look slightly annoyed and that was the button lift operator. After three of my group fell off in a row he did look a touch weary! This was probably because it was the first time I had seen a line form at any of the lifts (it is amazing there is no wait here at all).

I received the news I would be moving up a group again tomorrow!!! Then, as has become our usual routine, the family met up in the bar at 4:30pm for a drink and a snack. We exchanged animated stories and chatted with another family whom we had met in our lessons.

Dinner was again extraordinary (I will have to do a separate blog dedicated to the food here), then we joined in for an entertaining quiz before we all fell into bed at 9:30pm.

TTB