Got up around 7 this morning with the intention of going to Sendai Highland - a ski resort that’s about 35 minutes by train from here, and whose website makes no mention of skiing or snowboarding.
The site I use to get all such information (http://snowjapan.com), said that they are in fact a resort, and gives me all this information, including that they are 5 minutes from the nearest train station (八ツ森駅). The price is right, and it’s not a 2-hour trek like the last place I went to. (To which I went, I suppose.)
8:10 - Hop on train. ~35 minute ride ahead 8:50 - We haven’t stopped, but everyone carrying a snowboard (about half the people on the train) is still on, so hopes are up. Internet information is sometimes wrong, after all. 9:00 - All the boarders get off the train, at a station whose name I don’t recognize. There is no one to take your train ticket (they use the honor system a lot here, and don’t make a fuss if you’re dishonest. Especially if you’re a stupid 外人 - lit. foreigner, more along the lines of “white devil”.) I walk about 10 meters, following the other people, and I find myself at a ski lift. I may have my ski trip after all.
I had been planning on using the ATM in the town I was planning on visiting, but this town doesn’t have one. None of the businesses I’ve come across in Japan take credit cards, and ATMs close at about 6:00 PM, and don’t open until about 9:00 AM. (I thought the point of an ATM was that it doesn’t need to go home and eat dinner with its family. I can understand them being closed if there are a lot of muggings, but this is Japan.) I’m told the nearest ATM is two towns (and train stops back the way I came), so I keep my ticket, and just hop on the next train back.
I get back to the resort Omosiri-yama (面白山) with money around 10:00, get a rental, a coin locker, and I’m on a lift by 10:10.
I fell a lot on my first run, but after that, I fell maybe 30 times the rest of the day. I played it pretty easy at first, getting warmed up, and then I decided to try and hit the powder (of which there was A LOT). There were these little hills I guess you’d call them, lining the runs, and just stacked with powder, so monkey see other boarders doing this, monkey try. They’d get up the velocity and either try to go up and jump to the other side, or just come back down with a huge velocity. A lot of crashing, but to my surprise, it’s soft and cushy! There is no pain - only cold powder spraying your face and getting in your coat.
I spent most of the rest of the day on the intermediate and advanced runs where I got a lot of powder experience. The speeds and slopes I can handle are really really picking up, and I felt really good on a lot of the runs.
Biggest achievements:
- Improved speed and balance.
- Standing up parallel to the course instead of standing up, stalling, and then turning the board.
- No yard sales.
Next weekend I’m taking some friends back, because it’s super close, and really affordable, and great slopes and snow.