Niseko Annupuri from the bottom of the hill, early AM.
See those clouds? You know what that means later on, kiddies
Truly a beautiful summit...
Same picture from the top of Niseko Village as on the previous post. notice something missing?
Whiteout conditions prevailed for most of the day
I discovered chair lifts make for interesting graphical composition
Whiteout, yeah?
Lunch! Kim-chi ramen is amazing. Notice huge brownie.
Grand Hirafu. The third resort and the only one I skied for one day only. The inclement weather mostly shields Yotei-san from close inspection.
The beginnings of sunset. Or an orbital defense laser. Not sure which.
Sugoi!
Last sunset in Hokkaido!
Dinner at the cafeteria...huge ball of wasabi on the left side.
Yeah, that's right. X-Wing. Star Wars reference ON MY SKIS.
Yotei-san from the train. What a view.
Shoreline of the north pacific...along with vacant fishing boat. Creepy.
Clean room = finger guns!
Casualty Tardiness
Week 39
Casualty Tardiness
Week 39
I woke up the next morning in my quaint little hotel absolutely sore as hell. Skiing really takes it out of you, especially when you do as many runs as I did the day before. Towards the end of the day a minor injury I had in my left hip and leg began to seriously, seriously hurt. It didn't help that the hill was also getting progressively icier. The skiers among my readers know the feeling I'm talking about.
For those who aren't, here's the explanation.
Towards the end of the day on almost any ski hill, the top layer of snow (powder in this case) gets slowly compressed and pushed around, usually ending up mostly in small piles or in long flat patches.
The crappy part of this is the conditions it creates later on in the day. Basically, patches of slick ice combined with piles of snow, which makes for unpredictable riding conditions. It's also especially annoying if you happen to have a sore leg like I did at the time. Whenever you are carving back and forth down the hill, should you happen to hit an ice patch your skis (usually) immediately loose the edge they were cutting. This causes a kind of rattling effect in the leg lower down the hill as your ski slides against the ice. It causes a really fast, bumpy vibration, almost like those anti-sleeping-while-driving strips placed along highways.
Extremely uncomfortable for sore muscles.
So, extremely long story short, I was hurtin' when I got up that day.
But, I got over it quick and before long was on the hills feeling fine once again. This was of course after having a second EXCELLENT breakfast prepared for me by the owner of the hotel. They really were very, very nice people.
The second day up the mountain started with perfectly clear, beautiful, beautiful weather. I was on my way up for the first time shortly after 9 AM. Unfortunately though, these conditions were not long to last. After the first few runs the clouds moved in and started choking off the summit of the mountain.
The drag about this whole day was that the gates to the back country sections of the hill were open all day and I was sorely tempted to break off and enjoy some fresh, untouched powder. I had, however, promised my mother not to take any risks, and due to the fact that an avalanche had occurred the day before on the opposite face of the mountain and my lack of a proper partner in the descent, I decided to abstain.
I spent a good part of the beginning of the trip freaking out about trying to find an ATM. Unfortunately, nowhere on the mountain seemed to accept my card and I was fast running out of cash. I ended up checking the resorts at the bottom of all three of the hills and came up dry in each case. One helpful employee suggested I take a twenty minute bus ride into the middle of the city to visit a bank.
Yeah.
Not doing that in ski boots buddy.
So I spent the rest of the day doing the same old same old. Catching some nice powder, slingshotting back and forth between the top and bottom of the mountain, all that nice stuff. It started to snow in the early afternoon, so I ducked into the 1000m hut restaurant, the same place I'd eaten lunch the previous day. It was amazing, just like the day before when I had some amazing seafood curry. The nama biru was also very good. I also had a HUGE brownie, which was also fantastic.
The rest of the day went very well. I very nearly missed the last lift over to my side of the mountain though. In the last hour of the day I did three full summit runs down from the top of each of the three resorts. I made the final lift to the top of the mountain with about 2 minutes to spare. Close. The chair lift closed and ski patrol ushered everyone down shortly afterwards. I stuck around on the slope to take a few pictures of sundown, then partook of night skiing for a couple hours. I finished off the night pounding down the hills to The Killers' awesome track, Spaceman.
Exhausted, I stopped by the cafeteria at the bottom of the hill for a nice ramen dish before dragging my gear the ten minutes back to the pension. I informed the owner on my arrival that I was unable to find an ATM and needed to know where the nearest one was. As it turned out, it happened to be at a 7/11 several kilometers down the road. It also turned out that my hosts were about to pick up the next guest at the station. So, shortly after 9 PM I was withdrawing cash from an ATM then waiting for the owner and the next guest to return.
A few minutes later I was sitting in the dining room at the pension enjoying some light dinner conversation with the new guy. Turned out he was US Navy, up for 4 days of snowboarding. I tried to give him the best idea I could of the layout of the mountain before. Didn't stay up too much longer though, due mainly to the knowledge that I had to be up very early the next morning in order to catch my flight. I bid adieu and as a final goodbye discovered that my replacement needed to take out cash.
Ah, the cycle continues.
Next day simply saw me waking up nice and early to catch the very first train out of Niseko all the way out the airport and a quick flight back to Tokyo. It was a pretty cool train ride, starting with amazing views of Yotei-san, interspersed with large numbers of high school kids commuting to school. It all culminated when I noticed a couple of girls next to me trying to pronounce a particularly long word on one of their shirts. I helped em' out by pronouncing it for them, which led to a large number of "sugoi"s and embarrassed giggling. That's actually the first time I think I've noticed anyone trying to sound out English outside of the classroom in all of my time over here. I was expecting to be able to help people out with stuff like that much more...First chance in Hokkaido though I guess.
Always happy to help!
I enjoyed a nice BLT lunch in the airport and accidentally ordered a beer even though it was like 11 AM and I didn't really want it.
What, it's reflex now in a restaurant!
Hehe.
Finally back at my apartment after a short flight with a bit of turbulence (and a window seat, score!), I was happy to just chill out for the rest of the day and decompress.
The work week started for me on Thursday, having arrived back from Hokkaido on Wednesday. It went well, if somewhat weird due to how short it was combined with the erratic sleep schedule I'd had over the last week or so. This didn't help when I slept in on Friday and was late to work for the first time in nearly 10 months. It actually really deeply affected me. I woke up multiple times over the next couple weeks and months in a cold sweat thinking I was late for work. Nightmares, I'm not kidding. It still happens from time to time and really pisses me off.
The rest of the week, including the weekend was, if I remember correctly, extremely unremarkable. I spent most of my time planning up the trip that was to happen the week after, as well as cleaning my apartment, etc. Nothing great. Maybe Rock Band in Shimo? I don't remember...
Next week it's once again unto the breach for even more skiing action!
Snow-blindingly yours...
Ian "Mello Yello" Cantello
I spent a good part of the beginning of the trip freaking out about trying to find an ATM. Unfortunately, nowhere on the mountain seemed to accept my card and I was fast running out of cash. I ended up checking the resorts at the bottom of all three of the hills and came up dry in each case. One helpful employee suggested I take a twenty minute bus ride into the middle of the city to visit a bank.
Yeah.
Not doing that in ski boots buddy.
So I spent the rest of the day doing the same old same old. Catching some nice powder, slingshotting back and forth between the top and bottom of the mountain, all that nice stuff. It started to snow in the early afternoon, so I ducked into the 1000m hut restaurant, the same place I'd eaten lunch the previous day. It was amazing, just like the day before when I had some amazing seafood curry. The nama biru was also very good. I also had a HUGE brownie, which was also fantastic.
The rest of the day went very well. I very nearly missed the last lift over to my side of the mountain though. In the last hour of the day I did three full summit runs down from the top of each of the three resorts. I made the final lift to the top of the mountain with about 2 minutes to spare. Close. The chair lift closed and ski patrol ushered everyone down shortly afterwards. I stuck around on the slope to take a few pictures of sundown, then partook of night skiing for a couple hours. I finished off the night pounding down the hills to The Killers' awesome track, Spaceman.
Exhausted, I stopped by the cafeteria at the bottom of the hill for a nice ramen dish before dragging my gear the ten minutes back to the pension. I informed the owner on my arrival that I was unable to find an ATM and needed to know where the nearest one was. As it turned out, it happened to be at a 7/11 several kilometers down the road. It also turned out that my hosts were about to pick up the next guest at the station. So, shortly after 9 PM I was withdrawing cash from an ATM then waiting for the owner and the next guest to return.
A few minutes later I was sitting in the dining room at the pension enjoying some light dinner conversation with the new guy. Turned out he was US Navy, up for 4 days of snowboarding. I tried to give him the best idea I could of the layout of the mountain before. Didn't stay up too much longer though, due mainly to the knowledge that I had to be up very early the next morning in order to catch my flight. I bid adieu and as a final goodbye discovered that my replacement needed to take out cash.
Ah, the cycle continues.
Next day simply saw me waking up nice and early to catch the very first train out of Niseko all the way out the airport and a quick flight back to Tokyo. It was a pretty cool train ride, starting with amazing views of Yotei-san, interspersed with large numbers of high school kids commuting to school. It all culminated when I noticed a couple of girls next to me trying to pronounce a particularly long word on one of their shirts. I helped em' out by pronouncing it for them, which led to a large number of "sugoi"s and embarrassed giggling. That's actually the first time I think I've noticed anyone trying to sound out English outside of the classroom in all of my time over here. I was expecting to be able to help people out with stuff like that much more...First chance in Hokkaido though I guess.
Always happy to help!
I enjoyed a nice BLT lunch in the airport and accidentally ordered a beer even though it was like 11 AM and I didn't really want it.
What, it's reflex now in a restaurant!
Hehe.
Finally back at my apartment after a short flight with a bit of turbulence (and a window seat, score!), I was happy to just chill out for the rest of the day and decompress.
The work week started for me on Thursday, having arrived back from Hokkaido on Wednesday. It went well, if somewhat weird due to how short it was combined with the erratic sleep schedule I'd had over the last week or so. This didn't help when I slept in on Friday and was late to work for the first time in nearly 10 months. It actually really deeply affected me. I woke up multiple times over the next couple weeks and months in a cold sweat thinking I was late for work. Nightmares, I'm not kidding. It still happens from time to time and really pisses me off.
The rest of the week, including the weekend was, if I remember correctly, extremely unremarkable. I spent most of my time planning up the trip that was to happen the week after, as well as cleaning my apartment, etc. Nothing great. Maybe Rock Band in Shimo? I don't remember...
Next week it's once again unto the breach for even more skiing action!
Snow-blindingly yours...
Ian "Mello Yello" Cantello
2 comments:
the snow is really pretty!
oh i was playing rockband too last night. It's fun. Except I sort of fail at drums and just sang instead. My friends were amazed that I sang loud and unabashedly.... lol all that practice of karaoke put to good use
Well done Zoey, I knew you could do it.
Seriously, high point of my week usually is Monday nights :)
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