Skiing in Nagano was pretty fun. The first day wasn't so great actually. We were supposed to leave early in the morning, but Abi's brother got delayed flying in from London to Tokyo and missed the train that was supposed to bring him to Toyama. Instead he had to catch a flight from Tokyo. Apparently his flight was delayed because of snow in London, which Victoria said never happens. We left around 9:15 or so, and got there before 12. It is not really that long of a drive, and if the roads had been better, it would've been even faster. Instead we hit some snowy spots on the highway and had to drive slower. We went straight to the ski slopes of Happone, one of the two resorts that the 1998 Winter Olympic skiing events were held at. The resort was really big. In fact it was a little too big, because we started over two miles away from the bunny slopes, which were at the bottom of the other side of the mountain. There was a shuttle, but the information desk advised us to take the lifts up to a certain point, then head down the mountain to the bunny slopes. A group of 4 of us headed down that way, while the more experienced ones went on up the mountain further. We were already quite high up the mountain, and the snow was very icy. Since we all weren't very good (except Victoria on her skis), we didn't arrive at the bunny slopes until around 3pm. The "easy" trial down the mountain was easy in grade, but not in other regards. It was about ten feet wide with a sharp drop on one side of the path. It didn't look too fun to fall off, so I was pretty scared. The snow was very icy, and not so good for skiing and snowboarding. By the time I made it to the bunny slopes, I had probably fallen over 50 or 60 times, and was quite bruised. We only went down the bunny slopes a couple times before heading back on the shuttle, which went by the hotel we would be staying at and only took about 15 minutes.

The hotel we stayed at was okay, but way too expensive. Our heater didn't really work very well. We left it on all night, but the room was still about 10 degrees celsius (maybe). At least the hot water worked well. Many JETs went to a party, but I went to bed early. I was quite pooped.

The next morning we went to Iwatake, which was also close by. The region we were in is called Hakuba, and has about 8 huge resorts in a tiny area. It is great for skiing and famous in Japan. It might be considered the third best place to ski, after Hokkaido and Aomori. Iwatake was pretty neat. Victoria and I did a beginner's route with some challenging places, and did quite well. The snow was much nicer, so falling didn't hurt so much, and I didn't race out of control as much. By the end of the day I felt quite good about my snowboarding. We went up to the top of the mountain on the gondola and got a great view. However, the easy routes on the top of the mountain were a little difficult for us. We should have gone to Tsugaike, an easier resort nearby. Maybe next year we'll sponsor a beginner's trip and an intermediate trip.

We made it back just in time to return the vans. It was quite hectic but lots of fun.