boarding on ice

Koichi's pimping ride
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Karen came to School on Monday for my last lesson with my favourite class at Takeo Seiryo, 3-1. The students are graduating in March and most have now finished their "studying days" at high school, and get to stay home and relax. A few though, still have university entrance exams to take and will be continuing their efforts until the very last minute. I definitely feel for them.

I had kept it a secret from them that Karen would be coming to class and they were thrilled when she walked in with me. All of them listened intently to her self introduction and pestered her with questions at the end. After Karen had introduced herself we played a game of "who wants to be a millionaire" which they seemed to enjoy, though they didn't really understand the concept of the person at the front having to answer the questions on their own and without help from their friends. Still if the biggest problem from the class was the fact some students wanted to help out their friend, I can live with that!

But, when is snowboarding ever not fun? Never!

excited to be in the snow
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After a quiet week, of which I had more classes cancelled than held, I found myself on Friday setting my alarm for 2.30am. I was meeting some Japanese guys at 3am to go to Hiroshima snowboarding with them. I awoke in the dead of the night to the terrible sound of my cell phone alarm and dragged myself out of bed and into the shower.

I had been invited by a guy called Koichi. Koichi, and his friends all work for a ship building company called Namura. Karen is their English teacher and I met a few of them at a BBQ last November. I hit it off with them all and enjoyed the chance to talk with Japanese guys of the same age bracket as me, a rarity in our town which seems void of 20 somethings! All of them were interested in snowboarding and at the time invited me to go away with them once winter kicked in. I, of course, expressed my interest, but honestly wrote it off as something that would probably never happen. How wrong did I feel the day I got a text from Koichi inviting me to go away with them?!

...umm...I'm pretty sure this ended badly!
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All the guys were really nice and tried so hard to speak English with me. Lucky for me a few of them are actually pretty good (Karen must not be half bad as a teacher!) and conversation remained steady throughout the day.

It was certainly a long day too. We left at 3am, drove for about 5 hours till we got to the ski field (Osorakan), boarded all day, and then drove back that night, finally getting into Takeo just after 11pm. I have no idea how Koichi managed such a long day with so much driving and not falling asleep, I guess coffee had a big part to play.

a little nose spin
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The boarding conditions themselves were less than impressive. Having had a very below par winter, in terms of snow, we were gutted to see patches of dirt showing through the snow in certain areas. The snow that was there was icy and only 17cm thick in the deep parts! On top of this I had been given the worst rentals in history (massive long heavy board, and the worst, soft, out of shape, boots ever !). But, when is snowboarding ever not fun? Never! By the afternoon the ice had softened to snow and we had a blast cruising down the mountain as a large group practicing tricks and spins. It made me think back to the days in New Zealand when the weather would become a white out and instead of heading for the car we would make the most of it and practice something we normally couldn't be arsed with. By the end of the day I had managed to knuckle down a couple of new tricks for my repertoire that is in very short supply!

lunch time - udon noodle time
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I spent some of the day boarding, and riding chair lifts, with basically everyone in the group and got to know each of them a little better. As everyone had kindly chipped in and bought my lift pass for the day as a wedding present (very unexpected and generous of them) I really wanted to do something in return, so I acted as the "official photographer", grabbing a couple hundred pictures of them all cruising, falling, and spinning down the mountain.

By the time I got home that night I was absolutely shattered, but it had been a fantastic day trip, and one that I think of fondly from my time in Japan.