Journey to the Roof: Tuesday-Saturday

The next day (Tuesday) we loaded up an hour earlier than usual and headed off to Shigatse, 330 km from Lhasa and separated by a 4,900m pass. It took nearly the whole day to reach Shigatse, as the speed limits are slow, our van was slow, and we stopped at the top of the pass to view the turquoise colored, scorpion shaped, Yamdroktso Lake, said to be a holy lake of the Buddhist religion. We also stopped at another monastery in Gyantse Dzong and Corin and I climbed to the top of a beautiful pagoda. This monastery had the most wood carvings I've seen yet, making it a nice change from the Palace and Temple, and it was surrounded by a wall built in 1904 to protect the monastery from the invading English. We stopped for lunch in a very poor town and were constantly approached by beggars while we ate. This time, it was both Corin and I's turn for our food to arrive late and although it turned out to be wrong, we didn't complain. We finally reached Shigatse at around 6:30 Tuesday evening and unloaded our bags into the beautiful rooms at the Mansarovar Hotel. We took advantage of the hotel's Happy Village Restaurant where Corin got an amazing cordon bleu, Barbara ordered a chicken chili dish like the one I'd had previously and Lars, Monica and I tried the tuna and chicken salads, respectively. Lars and Monika also ordered a prosciutto pizza, but it never arrived. Besides the often late or never arriving meals, the food in Tibet was actually quite good. The restaurants however are usually dirty and smoke filled. And toilets are a whole other story that I'll spare our gentle readers. Let's just say it's BYOTP and the darker the restroom, the better.

Wednesday morning saw us all up and eating breakfast by 6:30 in order to embark on the final leg of our journey to Everest. We were sad to leave our beautiful hotel but the thought of ending the day under Everest's shadow was an excellent motivator. During the day long drive, we picked up an elderly hitchhiker, whom Konchok called grandfather, and he rode with us for a good hour on his way home from Shigatse. During this drive we were able to get the biggest taste of life outside of the city. If one would remove the telephone poles, and the occasional pieced together motorbike, you wouldn't have known what century you were in. Scrawny little horses and shaggy black yaks pulled plows as the farmers prepared the ground for planting. Farmers sat for lunch at the edges of their fields while their tiny horses munched grain from the feed bag nearby.  We stopped for lunch at a small local place and had various yak influenced dishes. From there, we continued on towards Everest. Upon reaching the pass that would lead to the foothills of Everest, our bus broke down. After 30 km of unpacked, half washed out road, the bolts had simply rattled loose. The repairs set us back an hour but we all clapped wholeheartedly when we hit the road again. Unfortunately, we stopped not five minutes later due to the rattling and eventually the driver had to tie the engine pieces together with the white welcome scarves we had received upon entering Tibet. The rigging worked and with the Himalayas in full view we were on our way, for reals this time. Everest had first come into sight at the top of the pass and it was bigger and more magnificent than I could have imagined. In the same way that the Grand Canyon's depth and length is nearly indescribable, the tallest mountain on earth is as tall and breathtaking. It went in and out of view for the next 60 km (still on teeth rattling, kidney bruising roads) until we were nearly at our destination. We arrived shortly after 7, completing our 12 hour journey just 4km from Base Camp with Everest in full glory. Our home for the night was a yak hair tent, cozy and tidy and heated by gathered wood and goat dung. We sat and acclimatized for an hour or so, drinking hot tea and fire roasted potatoes straight off the stove. We then ordered fried rice from our host/cook/hotel owner, consumed our meals and called it a night. The short trip to Base Camp would wait until morning.

Sleeping under the shadow of Everest is a mighty epic feeling but waking up to the first rays of sun hitting the highest peeks might be even better. Despite the freezing night temperatures, the valley warms quickly upon the sun's rising. The only chilling factor that remains is the wind, and goodness, it gives Wyoming a run for its money. After we had taken sunrise pictures to our hearts content, our host made pancakes (more like very sweet crepes) and I dug into my emergency oatmeal and peanut butter stash. We then caught the 9am bus to Everest Base Camp (EBC). Once there, we took yet more pictures, this time from the closest vantage point any non-climber can make. We were awed by the tents in the valley at the very base, no doubt full of climbers preparing and acclimatizing for their first accent. What a thing to be able to claim, that you've climbed Everest! An amazing, crazy thing. After a half hour of the freezing cold winds and awe-some views, we climbed back into the bus and hit the road back to Shigatse. This time, since our bus didn't break down and we didn't stop at every pass, the trip took a mere 10 hours.

Back in Shigatse we supped at the Happy Village Restaurant again and soon after bid everyone good night. Showers, heated rooms and an extra good night's sleep were high on everyone's list. All that remained of our adventure was the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery, the base of Buddhism's penchant-lhama, and a six or seven hour trip back to Lhasa. Our final full day saw us rising a little later, eating a full breakfast and heading over to the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery. Here we saw an 8 meter tall (about 26ft) Buddha that caused the words "wow!" to escape my mouth as soon as we entered the door. Konchok had not told us it was going to be so big! We then toured three more buildings and the main assembly hall. As it goes while visiting cathedrals in Europe, monasteries in Tibet begin to look the same very quickly. This was true with the Tashi Lhunpo as well. The architecture, carvings, draperies and statues are all incredibly detailed but the monks at this monastery seemed most active, sweeping and smiling to the visitors and worshippers. Since we were so well versed in Tibetan monasteries by now, we were quickly through our tour of the buildings and got on the road to Lhasa. Around lunchtime we hit a bit of snow but it cleared as soon as we left the canyon we were traveling through.

Please click here for pictures of this part of our trip. 

Our final night in Lhasa was spent doing last minute bartering, dining with our new found friends that we sadly might never see again and preparing for our flight back to Chengdu. This country has left an impression on my mind that can never fade. We have brought back pictures, stories and trinkets (those hard bargained for and those in which we probably paid too much) to share with others but the sensations experienced in Tibet will be the things that last the longest. The feel of a copper lotus flower, warn smooth by thousands of hands and foreheads being pressed to it will never leave my fingertips. The stairs worn smooth from so many pilgrims feet will forever stay with my footfalls. The smell of burning yak butter and incense and the sound of yet more butter being sprinkled into the bowls by old women with bright yarn tied into their braids. The sound of horses' hooves on the stone paved roads, the jingle of the bells that are tied 'round their neck and the blaring horns of passing cars. However, what I will remember most is the intense devotion the Tibetans show to their faith, a faith challenged by a "liberating army" and a clinging to of a culture in danger of slipping away forever. The older generation walks daily, always clockwise, around the temples, palaces, cities and monasteries continually spinning the prayer wheels held in their hands. The murmurings of whispered prayers can be heard under their breaths, prayer beads rolling through their fingers. The youngest generation imitates their parents and presses their foreheads to the door frames and walls and floors of the holy places,and yet I often wondered how long the traditions would continue to be passed down. Buddhism and Tibet used to be synonymous but Chinese and western influence can be seen throughout the bigger cities. From the monument to the Liberation Army that reaches for the sky directly across from the Potala, to the old woman with colorful braids talking on her cellphone, one has to wonder how long Tibet as it once was will continue. No matter though, as this adventure has opened my eyes to a simpler way of life and a stronger level of devotion to one's God, whoever or whatever that might be.

Click here for pictures of the final leg of our amazing trip. 

Journey to the Roof: Sunday-Monday

We arrived at the Lhasa airport around 4 pm and were greeted by a temporary guide that would transport us to Lhasa, 60 km away. We were bid tashi delek (hello in Tibetan) and draped with pure white scarves as a token of welcome to Tibet. We climbed on the bus and met our fellow tour members: Lars and Monica, two Germans, a Taiwanese woman, Ling and one Chinese girl, Xiang (who went by Jessica) who both work in Shenzhen as cell phone engineers. Lars and Monica, ironically, live an hour north of Tokyo working for a German engineering company. They have been in Japan for five years and Monica is fluent in the language. They turned out to be our closest companions on the trip, as we had many shared experiences being transplants in Japan exploring Tibet during our Golden Week holiday. The five of us were transported to the Mandala Hotel, our base in Lhasa for the next three days. It was here that we also met our seventh member, Barbara, a spry seventy-two year old intent on reaching Everest while her one lunged husband, Pete, toured China.

We sought out a quick dinner and found a nice restaurant with an English menu. We tried yak curry and yak pizza, both tasty dishes. Afterwards, travel fatigue and the first signs of high altitude sickness caused us all to turn in early.

The next morning (Sunday) dawned bright and beautiful with the sun not rising until well after 7 (it also doesn't get dark until after 9). We had our pick of the Mandala's continental breakfast and headed off with our trusty guide, Konchok, to the Potala Palace. Words and pictures cannot describe the immense size and sense of awe the Potala invokes. It is an incredible building to say the least. However, every tour group in the country visits the Potala at about the same time and pushing and shoving quickly takes away much of the feelings of admiration. We spent three hours climbing thousands of stairs, being shoved into corners, and watching Buddhist followers pour yak butter into the always burning candles and stuff yuan bills into every crevice they could find. Alters in front of the various buddhas were also adorned with rotting apples, sour smelling milk cartons and various other offerings hoping to be blessed.

After the Potala we went to find lunch and were directed to the New Mandala Restaurant.  Here I decided to bite the bullet and order yak butter tea, the staple food of the Tibetan people. Although few others agreed, I thought it was delicious. The trick is to not think of it as tea but as a hot broth perfectly suited to warm your insides from the harsh climate of the Tibetan plateau. However, our weather on this trip was incredible and the yak butter tea still tasted good. Blue skies, a slight breeze and temperatures in the mid to upper 60s, far warmer weather then we've had in Kushiro this year.

After lunch we headed to the Jokhang Temple, housed inside of Barkhor Street. This street is circular and marks the center of old Lhasa. Buddhist followers walk clockwise day and night with prayers beads in one hand and an ever spinning prayer wheel in the other. There are also hundreds of merchants lining the street, selling their wares to foreigners and Tibetans alike, although the foreigner price is much steeper than the Tibetan, I am sure. Haggling is the name of the game and we tried our hand at it later that afternoon. The Jokhang was much smaller than the Potala but, as with most Buddhist buildings, the architecture and design were incredible. Every wall was painted in some grand mural and every door frame, window frame, molding and surface was carved and painted in vibrant greens, blues, reds and yellows. The Buddhas themselves are painted with gold paint and covered in scarves, jewels and the like, not to mention the piles of money laying at their feet. After the temple, we were free to do what we liked and all opted for an hour's break back at the hotel before doing some shopping and seeking dinner. The shopping was an adventure and Monica and I attempted to master bartering, although our skills failed when it came time to get a deal on prayer flags. Failed epically there. But, after purchasing a coral bracelet, four prayer flags and two magnets, I'd still only spent about $15 USD, so I'd call it a success. Dinner was at the Gangki Restaurant and had Lars, Monica and Corin ordering the yak burger. I found the "chicken chili" to actually be a nice chicken dish spiced with red chilies, instead of the kidney bean and ground meat style stew I was accustomed to. Barbara ordered an apple pancake that arrived over a half hour after the other meals but she noted that despite the wait, it was still quite good.  Once again Konchok had managed to wear us all out and we called it a night immediately after dinner.

Please look here for photos of this part of the trip.

Monday greeted us once again with blue skies and we set out at 9:30 for the first destination of the day, Drepung Monastery at the easy side of Lhasa. Drepung managed to be quite depressing with numerous beggars using the only English they knew, "hello, money?" over and over again. Some of these people were very pushy and quickly became upset if you didn't pay up. Many of were also small children or young mothers holding sleeping babies, all with runny noses and sad eyes. The monastery itself had definitely seen better days as it used to hold over 7,000 monks in the height of Buddhism in Tibet. However, only 300 monks remain to maintain the buildings and statues and the grounds look as such. We spent the morning at Drepung and then grabbed lunch at an excellent restaurant on the newer side of Lhasa, the Yak Steak House. We felt that we had fulfilled our yak eating requirements for the trip so Monica and Lars ordered Chinese chicken and cashews while Corin ordered chicken and fried peanuts. I got a wonderful Pad Thai, even though it was my turn to wait the extra half hour it took to arrive at the table (noticing a trend here?).

Upon completing our lunch we headed over to the second site of the day, Sera Monastery located in northern Lhasa. This monastery is famous for its afternoon debates and we arrived just in time to watch the younger monks find their places. We also got to visit the library and saw three amazing sand mandalas (incredibly detailed pictures made out of colored sand which take about four months to make). The debates were highly entertaining and I would not miss them if you ever plan to visit Tibet. They started with many younger monks finding spots to lay their mats in a tree-shaded courtyard. The other half of the monks (usually the older ones) stood in front of them and asked questions/quizzed those sitting on the ground on Buddhist teachings. Before the young monk could answer, the older monk would pull back and clap his hands together. This clapping is said to eliminate the three faults of the human race: desire, ignorance, and hatred. By clapping his hands, it allowed the answering monk to reply without being hindered by these faults. With nearly 100 monks debating in the courtyard, the air was full of laughter, yelling and sharp claps. It's an experience not to be missed.

We stayed at the Sera listening to the debates for a solid hour and then decided to head back to the hotel for a quick rest. Monica and I had our sights on getting massages and wanted a short break before heading out again. We grabbed dinner with Barbara beforehand, eating at a less than classy Chinese restaurant across from our hotel. The menu's English was hilarious, although we were never brave enough to find out what exactly was "solid colored" or "sauce in elbow." The food was okay but the rice bowl was gigantic! We laughed as it arrived at our table but could barely make a dent in it. After dinner, Barbara headed back to the hotel and we ventured off to find our blind massages. Apparently, the NGO Braille Without Borders has set up a massage parlor and trained blind individuals to be masseuses. We located the place rather quickly and Corin, Lars and Monica opted for a full body Chinese massage while I went for the reflexology foot massage. All were an hour long and cost between 80-100RMB (about $14-$16). My foot massage was excellent in the most painful sense of the word, and that seemed to be the consensus from everyone else as well. Lars might have ended up with some bruising on his legs while Monica was still sore two days later. Corin's masseuse just helped his sunburn start peeling a little early. It was an experience, but what would a trip to Tibet be without them?

Please see here for Sera and Drepung pictures.

Journey to the Roof: China

Tibet. A country of extremes. Extreme altitude, extreme devotion, extreme political situations. On Friday, April 27th we left our little city of Kushiro and headed off on a grand adventure to the high plateau that makes up the Chinese autonomous region of Tibet.  We spent our first night in Chengdu, the capitol city of the Sichuan province of China. We were required to stay one evening in China in order to pick up our Tibet travel permits. After 5 hours on the plane from Tokyo to Chengdu, we disembarked at 11 pm, intent on finding a taxi to our hotel. We were not expecting the mass of yelling, proffering taxi drivers trying to convince us to take their car. My only goal was to make sure we got into a registered vehicle, and that stipulation meant we ended up spending far too much on our transport. 200RMB for a 30 minute trip is steep, especially for China. After a fun filled taxi ride (they only got better) we arrived at our hotel and checked in with the little problem, even though no one spoke a word of English and we had quickly exhausted our knowledge of Chinese (nehow and shey shey can only go so far). We crashed into our rock hard mattress and awoke slightly refreshed but ready to face the day, pick up our Tibetan permit and hopefully have a chance to see the world's largest panda reserve and research center before our flight to Lhasa at 1:00 pm. We ventured downstairs, found a tasty breakfast of spicy Sichuan cuisine and attempted to explain our need to pick up our permit using pictures and a translation site. After a harried call to our tour organizer when they still couldn't find our paperwork, we had it in hand, buried in a stack of papers at the front desk. The stress of getting our permit out of the way, we were able to secure a taxi ride to the panda reserve and back to the airport for just 300RMB (further cementing the fact that we'd been ripped off the night before). We loaded up our bags and bid a heartfelt shey shey to the front desk of our hotel.

The Chengdu Panda Base was a nice addition to our trip and our early morning timing allowed us to see the pandas happily enjoying their breakfast of bamboo. We also saw many red pandas and a few peacocks. The base is mainly a research facility but provided nice, clean enclosures and there were more foreigners there than we'd seen since JET's Mid Year Conference in Sapporo. I never thought I'd be so freaked out hearing a large number of people speaking English. It gave me a good glimpse into the reverse culture shock I'm going to experience upon returning to the States.

The return trip from the panda base was straight out of an action movie. Our driver didn't just drive insane, he drove awesome. Red lights? I don't think so! Passing in the lanes of on coming traffic? Why not!? Pedestrian crossing? They'll move if he honks his horn loud enough and plays a little chicken. He was no stranger to the high speed chase and was determined to let us know. Despite almost dying every couple of kilometers and a foray onto the sidewalk he got us back to the airport with just minutes to spare. After our wild ride we were ready to hop on the plane to Lhasa!

*you can see pictures of this part of our trip here.

Hokkaido Rail Sesh

Sooooooooooo ski season is just about all wrapped up here in Hokkaido and what a doozy it was!  We traveled all of the island skiing some great powder and the occasional ice patch.  We went to the most famous resort in Japan, called Niseko, as well as Tomamu, Furano and Akan Kohan ski areas.  They all had their good sides and bad sides but in the end our overall favorite was Tomamu.  It has sweet tower hotels that you can ski into after a long day on the mountain, an onsen and a sweet ice bar that was super cold but worth it.

Just the hotel, nbd.

Angela progressed like a beast this season skiing her first ever blacks, tree runs and powder runs.  After being forced to follow us through some adverse terrain she quickly picked up and has been hooked ever since.  When we get back we're definitely getting her a pair of new skis and a pass to the closest mountains! Let's just hope the states get some real snow next winter, we got pretty spoiled over here this year.  I gained a new appreciation for powder skiing and got to demo lots of cool fat skis.  I didn't really get to work on park stuff very hard this year but still got to play around a little bit.  Hopefully next year I'll get to do both twice as much!  We're a little sad to see the ski season end but we're always happy to welcome in the spring and the warm weather!  

Angela skiing, 900 year old granny style.

Just doin' our thang on the slopes.

**let's give a round of applause for Corin's first blog post!**

***clapping***

Tales of an Engrish teacher, ichi ban.

It's nearly impossible to get Corin to write a blog post, as evidenced by every post on this blog, thus far, having been written by me. However, he generally comes home with much better stories than I do so I'm going to start compiling them here for posterity's sake. 

Case in point: The best story I have from class involves a very good English student at Meiki insisting on being called "Linda." I have yet found the right moment to inform him that Linda is, in fact, a girl's name. 

See? Not very good. But Corin, Corin has some killer stories. He goes to some of the "other" schools in the Kushiro area, those basically full of the students that didn't have high enough test scores to attend school within Kushiro's city limits. He has students who are entirely undisciplined in the classroom, the teachers having all but given up controlling them. On top of his unpredictable high school students, he also has worked with elementary and junior high school students at past English camps. One of these camps produced one of the best ESL blunders to date. It's amazing how changing one little letter can do to the meaning of a sentence. 

At the end of camp, all of the students and ALTs were asked to write cards for each other. Corin made some super cute cards featuring characatchers (<----is that even a word?) of himself and Sadie, another ALT in our area who was his partner during camp. He received some very sweet cards in return. One of them was from a little boy who was, as Corin puts it, "a space case." This kid had written a very nice card, one that I'm sure was an attempt at expressing his happy sentiments in making part of the farewell dinner with Corin and Sadie. The farewell dinner had been held the night before, each group of junior high and elementary school students taking care of a different part of the meal. Corin's group's assignment had been to prepare salads and rice crispy treats for the dinner. The preparing had gone fairly well and I believe the boy intended to write "thank you for helping us cook salad and rice crispy treats" on Corin's card. However, he didn't complete one pesky letter in the word "cook" and he will now be remembered for eternity as the kid who made Corin look like a pedophile.

I won't actually write what he wrote because the type of people who might put that particular phrase into a search engine, and possibly be led to this post, are not exactly the sort I want finding our personal blog. So thus, a picture of the card must suffice. It's probably better that way anyway...

Sorry, I can't get the photo to rotate...but you get the idea!

Corin also had an exciting class earlier this week in which he was supposed to play a game of Jeopardy. The teams were supposed to come up with their own names, and in true bad boy/girl fashion, the students wanted to be the Mother F***ers and the B*tches <insert incredibly bad katakana Engrish here>. Yes, these are students who can barely say "My name is ...." and yet they are coming up these options for team names. Being the awesome man he is, and taking their very poor pronunciation into consideration, Corin wrote "Mazda Hawks" and "Three Cheeses." God, I love this man. 

A New Year before (almost) all others.

When we reached Sapporo we grabbed a taxi and headed towards The Blue Wave Inn, an affordable hotel very near Sapporo’s drinking district, Susikino. 

On the train back to Sapporo.

Evan and David were staying there, so we organized ourselves and headed off to find a New Year’s Eve celebration we could giajin-crash. We happened upon a bar full of gaijin, many of them ALTs that we recognized from Sapporo Orientation. We settled ourselves in and started the evening off with snacks and drinks. The cook was a bubbly Italian motocross rider who might have spent more time taking shots with the customers than actually cooking anything, but the fries were spot on and the guys quite enjoyed the quesadillas. After talking with an ALT who had recognized us, and exchanging numbers, we decided that we would head to the nightclub “Mole” for the countdown to 2012. We still had some time to spare so we headed over to St. John’s Wood, a british pub style bar for another few drinks. By 11:30, we were on our way to Mole. The night club was full-ish. It wasn’t to the standard of Beta the night the Will.I.Am performed, but it was definitely enough people to have a good time. The music was loud and easy to dance to, although they might have played LMFAO’s “Shots” five times in two hours. Most of the Japanese partiers acted like they were at a concert and stood along the stage staring at the DJ. Corin and I knew better and danced our hearts out, then screamed and yelled when the countdown began.

Happy New Year!

It was a crazy experience knowing that our 2012 started 15 hours before anyone else’s and it was pretty fun to tell everyone “that’s so 2011” or “that’s so last year” for the hours afterwards (it may have also been funnier with the various alcoholic beverages we had consumed that evening…just saying). We left the club as the big hand on my watch neared two a.m. and found our way back to the Blue Wave, Corin and Even climbing piles of dirty brown snow in triumph every few blocks. It was the perfect way to bring in the New Year!

The whole gang together again!

The next few days were spent picking up a JET lagged Thomas, wandering around Sapporo, cursing the stars that we hadn’t read up on the Japanese New Year tradition of having ALL of the banks and ATMs close the first three days of the year. That’s right, no money for fun shopping the entire time we were in Sapporo. These bank closings coincide with what is the Japanese equivalent to Black Friday. There were sales everywhere, each store with their “Lucky Bags” priced and organized at the entrance. The tradition is to buy one of these bags and have it contain a complete outfit, a new wardrobe to wear in the New Year. They were priced from ¥2500 to ¥15,000 so there must have been some pretty good finds inside! Fortunately, we had taken out exactly what we would need to pay for hotels, trains and most meals before we’d left, so we ended up only having to borrow ¥1000 from Tom for the taxi ride home. Nonetheless, it was a bit of a pain having to count our yens just because the invisible man inside of every ATM in Japan needed a vacation. Oh well, another of those “cultural differences” I will never understand. 

The best powder in the world.

As though to make up for the off feeling of Christmas Day, New Year’s in Japan was one of the most fun I’ve ever experienced. But first things first: skiing in Niseko! As mentioned, Corin and I headed back to work on Monday and proceeded through three solid days of BOE/office nothing-ness. We then hopped the Limited-Express to Sapporo Station, changed to a local train headed for Otaru, swapped for a smaller train headed to Niseko and found ourselves in Kuchan around 4. Our amazing host, Ryo, picked us up from the station and took us over to his hostel, Niseko Lodge Tabitsumugi. 

There were only two other guests the two days we were there, a Kiwi named Jason and his eleven year old son. The two were eight days into their month long holiday, using every hour to explore the ski resorts around Niseko. Saying they were hardcore is an understatement. They hit the slopes as soon as the lifts opened and didn’t return until the resorts were shutting down the night skiing lights, every. single.day. Needless to say, we didn’t see much of them.

View from our hostel, the volcano Mt. Yotei.

We woke up fairly early the next morning and headed out to Grand Hirafu with plans to meet our friend Evan at some point that day. We had first met Evan at Denver’s Pre-Departure Orientation when he and Corin were roommates. After that, Tom, Corin, Evan and I spent the majority of our time at Tokyo Orientation together. However, he is placed in a beautiful city far down south and braved turbulant seas on a 20 hour ferry just to ski the powder of Hokkaido. However, finding him right away amongst the Japanese, Kiwis, and Aussies at Grand Hirafu was difficult so we started out skiing on our own.

Instead, Corin spent the morning coaxing me down the bunny hills and lovingly telling me to quit following behind the ski schools. It has only been a year since I last skied but when given the option to “pizza” or “french fry,” I’ll choose pizza every time. I passed one little girl at the top of the mountain crying her little eyes out, wailing that she was scared*. I felt her pain. I enjoy skiing, I really do, but the snow in your face, wind in your hair, powder rushing under your skis feeling of going any faster than a three-year-old on miniature skis in a hot pink snowsuit and monkey inspired backpack/leash combo brings me only mind-numbing fear. So Corin, as usual, was patient and encouraging and managed to get me back to a comfortable place in my skiing abilities, which usually meant calling up to me from a short distance asking if I was okay (I was, just talking myself through the descent like a paratrooper being dropped behind enemy lines during a sand storm/tsunami natural disaster combination of doom). After an expensive but tasty lunch and ensuring that I would be okay by myself, he headed off up the mountain to meet up with Evan and I stuck to the happy little slope I could navigate without fear. I ended up skiing four more runs before finally calling it “freezing” and heading in for some coffee. Corin followed soon after as a blizzard rolled over the mountain and made it just too hard to see and ski at the same time. Evan and his friend David were staying at a lodge on the mountain so Corin and I headed back into town by bus, warmed up in our little room and then found a tasty dinner, trying octopus for the first time and filling our stomachs with various flavors of yakitori (basically chicken meatballs on skewers).  

So much snow! This is total normal too...feet on feet.

The next morning we packed up and headed out, riding two hours back to Sapporo, the New Year nearly upon us. 

*I saw her later that day, possibly on the same run, still crying. This time she was simply saying "I don't want to ski anymore!" Let the poor girl go inside already!