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Hakuba-mura, Chubu, Japan
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
*BLAKE*
We woke up to a nice covering of snow on the trees and ground which made for a spectacular view from our hotel room - a true winter wonderland. We then headed down to have buffet breakfast which was provided by the hotel. It was better than the last hotels breakfast with a few more western choices including cereal which we hadn't seen at all previously in Japan.
Callum & Dylan being the experienced snowboarders headed off early to catch some 'Pow' as they like to call it. Get them anywhere near a mountain or snow and they start talking in snowboard lingo as if they were born snowboarding and have done it all their life. Lingo such as shredding, wipe out, rad and tearing it up start coming into their vocabulary. The rest of us find it quite amusing!
After breakfast Ashleigh, Maya, Louise and I walked down the street to Spicy Rentals to hire our snowboard boots & board. Once we were fitted out we headed to the Sakka ski lift which is a short 5 minute walk away from the hotel. We were advised there that quite a few of the ski areas were closed due to lack of snow or strong winds. We will be heading back here in the afternoon for our lesson so we had a quick look around and then headed back to the hotel to chill out.
We headed up the Sakka ski lift at 12.45pm and were met by our coach for the afternoon Sam. He was from England and spends his year moving from Japan to New Zealand chasing the pow. By this stage Callum & Dylan had made their way down the mountain to join us.
We started off with the real basics at the bottom of the mountain which included learning how to strap the board on to basic sliding techniques to get along the flat areas of snow. Unfortunately the bottom of the mountain where the beginner sessions are usually held it did not have enough snow so we were going to have to take the ski lift and learn how to ride off without any previous riding experience. For those that don't know getting off the ski lift nearly always ends up in a fall for beginners as it is an unusual movement (there are plenty of YouTube videos if you want a laugh of people stacking it). I went with Louise as I had one day experience so could try and help her. Needless to say it didn't go well with Louise falling across in front of me and I ran over her hand giving her a nice little cut and bruising on the fingers to start her snowboard experience. Maya & Ashleigh went down a similar boat falling over down the ramp!
We then proceeded to learn stopping on your heels. This is where you lean back to transfer weight on back of the board so it grips. We headed to a fairly steep slope which was quite intimidating but after a little while all were able to grip this technique. The next step was to brake toe side. This is a much more difficult technique as you need to face fully up the mountain putting all your weight onto the front of your feet making the front edge grip the snow. I had trouble with this on my first day of boarding in Yuzawa but managed a lot better with some guidance from our coach Sam. All the girls managed to break toe side for stages heading down the mountain with the odd fall which if you have snowboarded before is a given. After this we were able to sneak another run in before the lift was closed, this time having free rein to choose how to snowboard down. We all greatly benefited from having Sam to teach the basics and would recommend getting a lesson for first timers. A successful first day of snowboarding with no injuries just some sore spots.
After a good day snowboarding we all headed back to relax and get ready to head to dinner. We walked 10 minutes to the Lounge Bar which was located inside Tokoyou Hotel. We ordered some drinks and dinner which was tasty but the portion sizes were too small for a group that just shredded the mountain up.
We decided to leave but wanted another drink and dessert so we stopped in at The Pub (so good that it doesn't need a name). There we all got drinks while some got a cheeky slice of cake to end an enjoyable day in the snow.
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