Snowboarding

Hello again all! Glad to hear I have some new readers out there. Keep looking, maybe if I get enough hits, I can make it to the featured blogs section of Blogger! Then, I can get enough visibility to attract advertising, which means I can quit my day job, and just travel around Japan and update my blog full-time! See? It's in the interest of everybody.

So here's the skinny on my snowboarding trip to Mt. Naeba. Naeba is about an hour and a half away from me, up in the mountains at the border of Gunma and Niigata prefectures. It's a really scenic drive, I highly recommend it. That is, if you have a decent car, which I lack. It made it through okay, and it never really showed any indications where I might have to walk, but the engine was racing for a bit, and so was my heart.

Once we got into town, it was quite pretty.

It was just a small skiing town, but the locals were all right, and it was very scenic. There was a bar/restraunt called the Snowdeck where we hung out all the time, it had a pretty cool deck outside that was made of metal mesh, so the snow fell through it rather than piling up on it, so you can sit on the deck even in the snow. Hence the name. Really cold, though. They had a heater outside, but there's only so much you can do. The place really catered to foreigners, which I liked.

This is not the hotel we stayed in, we stayed in a little tatami-matted hole in the wall (whaddya want when the whole trip costs 150 bucks), but it indicates the popularity of the place. There were many such hotels around. There was one called the Prince hotel that was just absurd. Here's a link, you can check it out for yourself. It apparently has 1,298 guest rooms.

http://www.princehotels.co.jp/naeba-e/snow/index.html

This is Carey, with a friend she made outside the rental place. The rentals were a bit of an ordeal, and expensive, but worth it - I spent a lot of time in the snow, and without snow pants, it would not have been a fun day.

Here's my friends I hung with that day - from left to right, John, Macy, and Justin. A few people from Shibukawa were there too, but I got separated from them. I still had a good time though, so no worries. This is as we were getting ready to head out. It's worth noting that everyone else in the group had skis - I was the only loser there with a snowboard. Don't get me wrong, there were a lot of snowboards on the slopes, I would guess about 50-60%, but I took the snowboard option on the advice of my friend, who said that snowboards would probably constitute about 90% of the traffic. I figured I would feel self-conscious being on skis, so I went with the snowboard, which was extremely difficult. Now, I might have gone with the snowboard anyway, I was up in the air, but my decision was solidified by what turned out to be incorrect intelligence. Anyway, whatever, I had a pretty good time with the snowboard, but I might have spent less time on my butt if I had skis. Yes, I would like some cheese with that whine.

There were many mountains.

This is what the hills looked like when we got out there. It hadn't snowed in a couple of days, so the snow was really packed. I stuck strictly to the green slopes, of course.

There was a nice little frozen lake off to one side. This is as close as I got - with my level of control coupled with Murphy's law, I took it as a given that if I was closer than 100 yards, I would end up in the water.

The big 4-person lifts were noteworthy in that just after you get scooped up, a big canopy swings down over your heads completely without warning. It's like you're being eaten by the lift. There may have been warning, but none of us understood it if there was. All the announcements and everything over the intercom were in Japanese, of course. I'm sure that was a safety hazard, but whatever. John took the lift separately from the rest of us, and he said that the canopy actually knocked the ski poles out of his hand, and he had to skim down the hill without poles to retrieve them. He said it wasn't as difficult as it sounds.

Here's me on the ground. You can see I have about the same skill level as the 4-year old girl on the left. With the disadvantage that no one was going to help my ass up.

Here's me looking cool in my getup.

It's a shame I couldn't get a white outfit - it would have been really fun to go all snow ninja on the slopes of Japan. However, given my skill level, I probably should have been wearing bright orange to make it easier for the ski patrol to find my body.

At one point, we took a big gondola to the neighboring mountain, about a 15 minute ride away. The gondola was called the "Dragondola," and apparently it was the second longest such gondola in Japan. The Japanese have a habit of ranking everything. This is a view from the window, heading down one of the mountains. At more than one point, it just drops off steeply, and if you're facing that way, it looks like you're falling. Macy had a few bouts of vertigo, she was not having fun. She faced the other way very deliberately on the way back. I hated to say it at the time, but I was having a blast. I love high places.

Me on the Dragondola.

This is a very beautiful lake that we were able to see from the Dragondola. I don't know what makes it such a striking color, if anyone knows, clue me in.

Yeah, this part was difficult for me. To get back to the entrance to the Dragondola, you have to come this way - the entrance is just at the bottom of a very steep slope. This picture doesn't really do it justice, from the top it looks very intimidating. And this is at the end of the day, when everyone is just exhausted. This slope is easily the steepest I faced all day, and I still hadn't gotten the hang of steering. If I just pointed my snowboard down the hill and went, there are two ways it could have gone: 1) I fall halfway down at about 40 miles an hour, and seriously injure myself, or 2) I collide with the crowd at the bottom of the hill at about 60 miles an hour, and seriously injure myself and several others. I ended up going down it on my butt with the board perpendicular to the slope. Several people were doing the 'perpendicular to the slope' thing, but I was the only one I saw that had to add the 'on my butt' element. It's noteworthy that I seemed just about the only one faced with this conundrum - most people, even the 8 year olds on skis, glided down it fairly effortlessly. Ah, whatever. Injured pride beats cracked ribs anyday.

Well, that was about it. My butt is still sore, but I got some great memories out of it! On the whole, it could have been a whole lot worse. And next time I go (and there WILL be a next time) I'll be more prepared. So, take care everyone, hit Mt. Naeba if you have the chance, and watch this space for further adventures!