I woke early on Monday morning with my belly rumbling. So I grabbed my yukata and headed downstairs.... Man I love heated toilet seats on a cold winters morning.
When I got back upstairs, I continued writing my blog, though my battery on my laptop was nearly dead, as I hadn't charged it since Sakura Hotel. At least it had enough juice to finish my Saturday blog, and I started on Sunday, but it was heading toward 7am, and we needed to pack up our stuff. This is the problem with moving hotels on a nearly daily basis. We then went for breakfast at 7.30, and had a decent spread of food. I want to break out of my usual eating habits as much as possible (still can't eat cooked fish, it makes me ill), but I had some eggs, bacon, sausages, sashimi (I had some octopus and salmon), lotus root, and various little pickles and stuff, with a little bit of salad thrown in for good measure. We ate well, because it's important when you are boarding... Less energy = more pain.
We had to finish packing, so after breakfast we headed up stairs and started bringing stuff down. I got engrossed watching children's television, (they have some cute chicks on morning tele), but we then started bringing everything to the storage room. Whitney was going to give snowboarding a try, so we set up her board and bindings as well. I was anxious to get out, but we didn't start until about 9am. What followed was 2 hours getting Whitney down a run. We were sort of prepared a little, as Conrad's first run took about 1.5hrs, but Whitney just doesn't have the physical stamina that is required. She started getting the toe-side braking by the end of the run, but she was wrecked, so she took her board off and started walking down.. Well I say walking because after getting her feet stuck in a couple of drifts, before deciding to slide down on her bum. The next bit was funny as... Whitney didn't have a leash on her board, but she started using it like a toboggan. Then she got too much speed and fell off... only problem was that she wasn't attached to the board in any way, so the board goes careening down the slope. I leave her there and set off after it at a cracking pace, but it's got a good 50m head start. Fortunately it misses the many ski schoolers, and leaves a trail to follow, before ending up in some trees toward the bottom of the run.
By this time, Dean's next to Whit, and just keeping pace with her walking... She is embarrassed, and out of energy, so she decides to head back to the hotel. That leaves Dean, Con and I free to do whatever, so we head up and over the back of Ichinose to Terakoya. The run from Terakoya to the bottom of Higashidate would have to be one of my favourite runs, as it combines speed, technical turns, cat tracks and areas where you can float through powder banks to side of the run. We make good time, with Dean and me floating along some cat tracks, while Conrad sticks to the runs. We make it to the bottom where the gondola is, but by this time, we're getting low on energy, so we head back to Ichinose where we've got a ticket for half-priced pizza at Khuls. Dean, Conrad and I fill up on Potato and bacon pizza, and while wanting to head out as soon as possible, decide to start lugging the luggage from Khuls to Villa Ichinose where we'll be spending the rest of the week in the snow.
This took a little longer than expected, as there are 2 buildings that make up the Villa Ichinose, a front building on the street, which houses a ramen restaurant, mini-convenience store and ski lockers, while the "annex" holds the main hotel area. The staff were polite, with the young guy who speaks english (actually quite decently), telling us that we couldn't go to our room yet, as they hadn't finished making it up. That was ok, as we wanted to head out again, but it still required us to drag half a ton of baggage into a little room near the front desk. Two steep flights of stairs meant that it sapped us of energy, but soon, we were back on our way out.
We decided to head across to Yakebitaiyama, crossing across the bridge at the bottom of Ichinose Family, to Ichinose Diamond, then getting a couple of lifts up and over to Yakebitai. Although it was mid afternoon, there were still some areas that hadn't been tracked through. It seems like there are less people here this time. I don't know whether it's because of the financial crisis, or because it's just after a couple of public holidays, but for whatever reason, it seems like the numbers less that last time (although we did come in mid February last time).
Yakebitai has some fast terrain, and after making our way down a couple of different ways, we ended up at the Gondola No.2 This took us up to the top of the Olympic course, a black run with steepening gradient. The changes in the gradient usually have a lip, so as long as you remember to slow down a tad, you won't go flying. Anyhow, I went probably the fastest I've been on a board here. With the snow half untouched, it was easy to spot a good line that didn't have you criss-crossing over someone elses tracks, causing bumps. We made it down the bottom in no time, and got the same gondola up to do the mini-giant course. This one wasn't as good, as there were some moguls and other things to make it a tad harder to go really fast, but it was still fun nonetheless. By now it was getting on to about 3.30, so we decided to head back towards Ichinose, as we don't really want to get stuck without the lifts. This took us down one of the sides of Yakebitai with ungroomed runs. Lots of fun doing powder flicks, but not one where you could go barrelling down with massive amounts of speed. Still good times, and we made it back to Ichinose Family area at about 4.00. This left us time for a couple more runs before the lifts closed. We decided to do the Conrad's Training run. It's only a green, but with plenty of powder to be found at the sides and a few cat tracks as well, we had fun while hurtling toward the lift.
They had already started putting the seats up on the lift chairs, so it couldn't have been long before closing. But we grabbed our last chair of the day and decided to do the black run, as this would shoot us out opposite the entry to Tanne no mori, the area behind our hotel. We hooked it across, but Dean and Conrad spot the area I had pointed out, so they just headed down towards the road where Khuls is. I, on the otherhand, "had" to duck under a rope because I didn't have enough speed to continue on the path I had picked. What happened next was awesome. I was riding through untouched knee high powder. I didn't stack it, kept good speed and came out with about a foot of snow on my board. I still wanted to find the back entrance of the hotel, but took a wrong path and lost too much speed to make it across. I did end up going between 2 hotels, and out onto the road some 50m in front of Conrad and Dean, but I had a ball. Just as well the lifts were closed though, because I was spent.
We headed up to the hotel and found our room. It was another tatami room, but quite big. It had 2 seperate rooms for us and the girls, and a toilet and bath/wet area shower. I hadn't expected this, and considering it's nearly half the price of Khuls, I'd say it's actually better. The manager of the hotel is nice as well, and this place is run a bit more like a family hotel than Khuls. I decided to go jump in the onsen. I'm still not 100% comfortable with the whole nuding up thing, but with only about 5 rooms being taken, I figured it would be quiet. I was right, as I had the whole onsen to myself. This one had only a main "pool" area, but seemed about the same size as the two smaller ones at Khuls. I relaxed in there for about 15mins. My body needed it, as when you are teaching someone, you spend a lot of time on your knees and bum, so these were aching. After a quick shower off, I was dressed and met the others in the lounge area, where Dean and Conrad were tapping away on blogs or something. We had wanted to go to the Ramen place downstairs, but this was closed, so we decided to go to Kamoshika, the Nepalese curry/tandoori place in the hotel next door. I figured, it wasn't too far, so I just stayed in my tshirt and boardies, while the others were rugged up.
Kamoshika is good value if you want to eat cheap, as a curry (no rice) and a naan will set you back about 800Y. This was all I needed, as I was feeling a bit dehydrated and had a killer head/neck ache from stacking it a couple of times. Dean ordered a big set meal, Mum and Whitney ordered the same, while Conrad went with a curry and rice gratin covered in cheese. If you've seen pictures from our last trips here, you would remember that the naan are the size of elephant ears. We ate til we were full, thanked the owners, then headed back to the hotel. By this time we were wrecked. We watched some Japanese TV (Naruhodo High School), a gameshow where celebrities have to participate in certain challenges. It was funny, but it finished about 8.00, at which time, I passed out from exhaustion.
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