Adatara, Fukushima
This weekend, I went skiing at Adatara, Fukushima with a whole bunch of teachers from Hokota 2nd High School (and some affiliated with it). I spent the entire weekend skiing, skiing and more skiing. Oh and there was a little onsen action too.
As always, let me give everyone a few tidbits on Fukushima and Adatara. Fukushima is the prefecture directly north of Ibaraki. The prefecture is full of mountains so the area is quite famous for skiing. Adatara has a huge active volcano and it previously blew up in 1996. Active volcanoes = minerals= onsen!
First, I just want to say I don’t really consider myself a good skier. I’ve skied before (obviously) but never done it seriously. So, being Canadian, it was assumed by all the Japanese teachers that I’m a skiing expert! HA! Little did they know…Anyway…
Suzuki and Miya sensei, relative newlyweds.
Saturday morning, I got up at a ridiculous 3:30 am in the morning. I dragged my sleepy ass out of bed and caught my ride. Waking up at 3:30 in the morning sucks. Good thing I slept on the way up to Adatara. When the car got close to Adatara I saw a spectacular Mt. Adatara and the surrounding mountain range. It was pretty glorious but I was too sleepy to remember about my camera. Sorry…
Manabu sensei all decked out and ready to carve.
Arrived at the ski resort at around 9am. Got unpacked and equipped and was out on the slopes by 10am. The place was packed. There were so many kids there. I guess the place is pretty famous. There were tours running and school kids all over the place.
So, the first hill we went on was a easy slope. It was pretty simple but I managed to fall once. I hadn’t skied in a while so I was rusty. After going on that slope twice, they immediately started on the intermediate slope. All I can say is Wow… intermediate was steep… Steeper than Tremblant if I recall correctly. And the snow was icy and bumpy from all the usage. Anyway, I think I got a lot worse at skiing. I fell so many times Saturday and I really hurt myself. I have battles scars especially my toe. I stubbed it really badly and the nail is all black from blood. I have to walk with a limp now.
The Hoko 2nd (and affliated) ski crew 2010.
The onsen after skiing was amazing. The water was milky white from the minerals in the mountains and it made my skin super smooth. The best part about the onsen was SO totally out of an anime. 50 year old men screwing around and splashing water and throw snow at me in the outdoor bath. I would have never imagined it happening but it did. I guess this is part of Japanese male bonding… haha
Suzuki sensei, one of the many culprits in the onsen incident.
Dinner was delicious… and interesting! One of the teachers got drunk and decided to take me “girl hunting”. I didn’t know what was happening. He just told me to come with him and all of a sudden, he brought me to a table with 3 cute girls. I was like “WTF?!?!”. He introduced me to the girls and said I was from Canada and asked if we could sit down with them. He took a chair from another table and sat me down and started talking to the girls. The only thing I could do at that point was apologize profusely. This went on for a few minutes before the other teachers noticed and came to my rescue. I was ushered off back to one of the rented rooms (without the rest of my dinner). So sad… I had to eat cup ramen and it just made me more sick in the stomach…
Sunday (today) morning, had a Japanese breakfast and made eye contact with one of the “girls” from the night before while eating. I completely remembered all the embarrassing bowing and apologizing from that split second look. Sigh… I still need to master the powers of NO SHAME.
Skiing was crazy after breakfast. The “leaders” decided to take the gondola up to the top of the mountain and do the hard course down. I slid down the mountain on my ass for the most part of it and lost my cell phone to boot. Good thing the ski patrol found my phone. After the a rest break, the “leaders” decided to do another hard course. Again, I was on my ass for most of that course. The one time I fell, I was on my back and couldn’t stop rolling down the mountain. Somehow, I got turned around (probably because I lost a ski) and started going down head first. I only stopped because someone was there to stop me. If it wasn’t for him, I would have slid all the way down the mountain. Yikes… At that point, people finally realized that hard courses were too much for me. We did intermediate courses from then on.
Top of the Orange Line, one of the intermediate courses.
Anyway, it’s probably going to take me a good week to recover from all the bodily damage I sustained over the weekend. Damn being old an all…
-will
1. I know how you feel! I went snowboarding at Blue Mountain yesterday. I’m getting progressively better, and that means that I’m able go faster than before. This of course means that when I fall, I’m falling harder! My ass is going to be sore for DAYS.
2. I want to see bigger-resolution versions of these pictures! What’s with these tiny ones?
Rob: “2. I want to see bigger-resolution versions of these pictures! What’s with these tiny ones?”
Strongly agree!!
I feel a lot better today (Monday) but still very sore. My arms and shoulders are like rubber from picking myself my 1092830914 times. I had a hard time getting dressed this morning.
Also, I figured out how to link photos from my Picasa so no more tiny ass pictures anymore! Woot!