The next day we woke up bright and early, and ready to hit the ski slopes. That’s right; Fukushima prefecture paid for us to go on a skiing trip. I had never been snowboarding before, so I had signed up for snowboarding lessons. Sadly the day of they did not have instructors for us, for some reason. So I was looking to self-lessons and lessons from those JETs who would be kind-hearted enough to give us some pointers before heading off.
 |
| I am in the back with the pink gloves. You can barely tell that I even have a head... |
This is my getup:
My friends Jojo and Brenden were two such kind-hearted people. They gave us a few lessons at the bottom of the hill before we made our way to the top and had ourselves a “sink or swim” lesson. Felipe was having a harder time than I was so Jojo stayed with him for most of the rest of the day.
Cormac was a natural and was off like a bullet. Brenden stayed with me halfway down the hill before I released him and told him that I would be fine on my own. I felt like I was starting to understand how to do things and I didn’t want to be the reason Brenden didn’t get to go do more fun runs.
I was doing ok, I was able to make it down the hill once before we stopped for lunch. I fell down on my ass so hard at one point that I saw a white flash across my vision. I was in sooooo much pain! I was convinced that I had broken my tailbone. I was able to do nothing but just lay there for a couple of minutes. From that point on I learned real quick how to fall on the side of my butt or on my arms (which is not a good idea either because of the possibility of breaking your arms in a fall, but shouganai.) I learned later that I had not broken my ass, but had definitely put a shock up my spine, that is what caused the flash of white across my vision.
We stopped for lunch and relaxed for a while. It was here that I learned from others that the conditions on the hill were reather deplorable. The snow was no longer fresh, because it was so late in the season and most of the hill was just ice. It made your falls harder, and more painful. There was also a wicked wind blowing up the hill that day. It didn’t ruin it for me, but it put into perspective how different snow conditions affect you on the slopes. I hadn’t really thought about it much before that.
After that I was back on the slopes trying to get better at snowboarding. I fell many more times and spent the majority of my time on the ground. But I still had fun. At one point I had hit a rather icy part of the hill and was unable to stand on my board. The ice was too slick so for a couple hundred feet I was sliding down the hill like a crab. Felipe and Jojo were in the ski lift as I was doing this and saw me sliding down the hill with my hands dragging in the snow behind me. It was almost like a crab walk, but with a snowboard attached to my feet. I am sure I was quite the funny sight to behold. I could hear them laughing above me. That was actually the most fun I had on that hill. XD
I was able to go down the hill twice after lunch. But after that I was feeling very sore and tired, so I quit a bit early and went back into the onsen in the hotel to relax for a while before we had to leave.
The bus dropped us off in Fukushima City, and a few of us got dinner. After that I made the long, and familiar drive back to Minamisoma.
No comments:
Post a Comment