Sushi Express: Snowboarding

3 words: Snowboarding damn fun. But extremely tiring if you are a novice coz its inevitable that on the way down you will have to pick yourself up from the snow when you fall. Countless times. And the injuries you pick up from the falls can make your bed feel extremely conducive for sleeping. If not for my sheer determination for not wanting to waste the entire day sleeping and nursing my sore limbs and neck, I would probably still be comfortably curled up underneath the blanket. So as it was, i spent the weekend endangering my life at Kijimadaira located within Nagoya prefecture. It's apparantly one of the cheaper resorts around, but so far the only grouch I have are the purple ski pants that they provide. They make me look like a gay version of super mario, minus the moustache.

The tour bus that we took, reminds of those coach buses that we take to msia. But extremely cramped inside - Come on Japan, I know your land is scarce but even that in a coach bus?! There are even seats along the centre aisle. Poor guy, whoever is sitting there.

Theres me and my new friends, Kim, a korean colleague (he has a perculiar habit), and Murtha, a fellow singaporean from Singapore Jamco.

At one of the stopovers. Another msia-like feature, the foodcourts and shops selling snacks and biscuits and all.

Finally after much delay (we were supposed to reach at 4 am but only arrived at ard 9), we are there. And at the wrong hotel some more. Bummer.

While waiting for time to pass, I can only do something that only silly tourists will do - Take pictures! There's me and a native eskimo. Neh, its just Ha-san, or Q as he preferred us to call him. He explained that koreans have their own name, and a nickname, which is Q in this case.

After a 10 minute walk, we arrived at our resort.

Getting a shot with Sekkii-san, a younger than me japanese. Interesting guy. Wonder if I can take over his unused electric guitar.

Oh, there's Matsumoto-san caught with his jumpers on! Damn funny, I was supposed to take a picture of the room until he came onto the view just at the moment i pressed the shot button. Thanks ah Matsumoto-san, for the candid shot. At least his pants were on.

Next up, to the mountains we shall go! The daunting task lies ahead of beginners of the likes of us singaporeans. Don't underestimate this seemingly- gentle slope - it's actually steep enough to make us fall countless times. The numerous 'momentos' I left on my butt is testament of that.

The chairlift trip up makes me nervous during the first time. But the view is breathtaking. All I saw was covered with a white and black and grey hue and everything was in a monochrome theme. The 2nd picture is the view from up there.

The view back down again. To be able to see this chairlift station means that I have some how managed to survive once again. The sight of this always made me want to climb back up again and do those bone-breaking moves once more.

A shot with Sekkii-san. Haven't seen him in action yet though.

The entire gang during dinner. On the left row, from front, is Toohan, Yun, Kim, Jun, Matsumoto-san. On the right row is Q, Sekkii-san, Charlotte, Kimmy, Wee Ling and Stephen (husband and wife). Missing in the picture is Murthar and Sophia, as they had to cook their own muslim food.