January 2011

After my amazing day at Karasawa, I decided I was an idiot.  I hadn’t really ventured very far in my skiiing

attempts. By which, of course, I mean I skiied the same run over and over.  I think this was mainly because I am an unbelievable wuss.  I’d heard that the course (Uenotaira) was the easiest, so I stayed well and truly within my comfort zone.

As soon as I realised I’d been behaving so pathetically I decided that by the time Dad arrived on February 12, I’d have skiied every green run on the mountain.  I had 12 ski-able days left and 15 runs to ski.

So, today in my five hour midday break I did 9 of them.  And it was fantastic!  Another totally deserted, beautiful clear day.  Just perfect.  My skiing continued to improve (hurrah!) and I think I fully appreciated for the first time just how stunningly beautiful the mountain is.  So, my mission now is to ski as much as I possibly can and to be a better skiier than day, for the first couple of hours at least. [click to continue...]

I had a really amazing day at Karasawa today.  Karasawa is the ski run that is only about 2 minutes walk from Villa Nozawa (10 min in ski boots).

Until now, my skiing hasn’t been progressing terribly well.  I didn’t

get skis until the end of December and I’ve spent a fair chunk of January sick.  So all I can really do is snow plough, which is the slowest, easiest way of doing things.  A few weeks ago, Yan and Manuel, the ski instructors, told me how to do parallel turns and I’ve been wanting to try it for ages and today was the first chance I got.

So, Karasawa, a beautiful wide 3km slope.

I don’t know how or why, but it

all just worked.  I was chilled out enough that I didn’t freak out on the chairlift – it’s sad, but that’s actually quite an achievement for me – and when I skied I found my brain was switched off enough to go a bit faster and started doing the parallel turns without even consciously trying.

It was a really stunning day on th

e mountain as well.  Lots of fresh snow, beautiful clear sky, gorgeous scenery and only about 4 other people on the whole 3km run.

So basically this means I’m going out again tomorrow.

And yes, I know I look sensational in my hat.  :)

The Fire Festival in Nozawa Onsen is one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen.

It involves the 21(?) year old men and 42 year old men from the village, as these are supposed to be unlucky years.

A few days before the festival, the 21 year olds bring down trees from the mountain and built a big temple looking thing.  On the night of January 15, all the 42 year old men sat on top, while the younger men had to defend it from the rest of the villagers.

The tricky part lies in the fact that the young men are defending their temple with branch-like things, while the rest of the villagers are attacking with similar branches, but which have been set on fire.

So yes.  Going to watch the fire festival pretty much involves watching a bunch of guys getting the absolute bajeezus beaten out of them by the rest of the town.  With firey torches, no less.  And everyone is hugely drunk on sake, just to make it an extra challenge.

After a certain amount of time, one of the older men – presumably with some sort of authority – call it off.  At this point, the young men are untied from the temple, the older men climb down from the top and then the entire thing is burned down.

It is without a doubt the most insane thing I’ve ever seen.  Very dangerous – there were sirens going all night – and really just mental.

But mindblowingly amazing at the same time.

Click here for an awesome video.

What do they do with all the snow in all the places that don’t have water running constantly through the town like a drain-river?

We just put it in the pond or down the drain and wait for it to melt.  What happens in other places?

I’m sure I’m revealing the naivity that comes from growing up in the Sunshine State, but sure.

I went back to the town office today and picked up my Alien Registration card.

I am now officially an alien!  And I have a card to prove it.  Although I did manage to resist writing “Mars” as my home country.

New Years Eve in Japan was AMAZING.  It’s the biggest holiday over there – way bigger than Christmas (which, incidently is celebrated with pictures of Santa and cake).

To begin with, I went to the Stay Bar with Mark 2, Renee, Luke, Kat the Guest (there were 3 Kat’s) and her fiancee.  It was fun for a while, but the whole “You should be drinking.  Why aren’t you drinking?” routine got old after a couple of hours, so I went back to the Villa and sat in the dining room reading a book.  It sounds really lame, but I also overheard one of the funniest conversations of all time.  A group of young kids (aged 6 through to about 14) were watching a movie and some of the older ones had decided that as it was New Years Eve they ought to buy a can of alcohol from the vending machine (it’s Japan – this is totally possible.  Illegal, but possible).  They discussed it for maybe 20 minutes, how they would definitely do it, how cool they were, how they hoped their parents wouldn’t find out.  But when it came to actually getting the money and putting it in the machine, they couldnt’ do it.  To start, everyone had money, but noone was willing to spend it.  And even if they did want to spend it, noone was willing to do the actual buying.  After another ten minutes of this, they went back to their movie.  It was truly hilarious.

By then it was almost midnight, so I went up to the Nagasaka Gondola to watch the fireworks.  It was insane.  I think the health and safety rules are alot more relaxed in Japan – the fireworks were being set off so close to the crowd that when they exploded it seemed like they were coming down on top of you.  It was really, really neat.

Afterwards, I followed the crowd to the temple, where I waited in line for ages to even get up the stairs.  When I was finally in, I met up with Kat, Jan, Manuel and Anders.  I waited in line with them and then we each had a turn at ringing the temple bell (a traditional Japanese New Year thing to do).  Best NYE ever.