It would be funny if it wasn't so true. After getting to bed at some ungodly hour of the morning, I awoke at about 6.00, so I had nowhere near enough sleep. It mustn't have been good sleep either as I awoke with a tension headache at the back of my neck. I sat downstairs for a while, having a coffee and more water. Time went by quickly as before I knew it, it was 7.30 and time for breakfast. After the adventurous eating of the previous morning, I had a vary small breakfast with nothing flash. This didn't give me much energy to work with, so I took it easy. not even rushing to head out. I even tried to go back to sleep for a little while, but it didn't work and I figured that I better go out snowboarding.
Dean had already headed out with Conrad sitting in the lounge using his saniPad. I met Dean at the bottom of the Ichinose area, but he was complaining of lack of circulation even though his boots weren't too tight. We headed out for 2 runs, one black and one green. The green run was full of ski schoolers, so in one sections I broke off the path and went through the trees. This was fun, as it was a line I had spotted a couple of days ago, but I never had the courage to go for. This changed when I was nearly wiped out by an errant instructors, so shot through and down a cat track. I think I did pretty well considering, but I slowed down in a couple of sections where I had to go through thin tree gaps, and fell over. I made it back to the run and went around some trees toward the bottom of the run... I came out of the soft snow at the side of the run but had to wash off a lot of speed quickly, as I was about a metre from wiping out a ski schooler. I headed down and floated a powder bank at the end of the run, then unstrapped while I waited for Dean. I waited for a while, before I get a message saying that he's too sore to continue and is heading back. This was just as well, because on both of the runs, I wasn't feeling entirely sure footed and although I didn't catch an edge, I just wasn't feeling it at all. So I walked back to the hotel.
We sat around for a little while, before deciding to go find somewhere to get a massage. We walked down the road towards Ichinose Diamon, before stopping at the other Conbini in the Shiga Olympic Hotel. I grabbed a BBQ (pork?) bun, which is actually one of the best ones I've ever tasted, as well as a Kirin CC Lemon (1000mg of Vitamin C). We kept on walking down to the Sunroute (where we stayed in 2009) as we heard there was massages there. I found some powdery stuff for headaches, but were told by the leadfoot manager that they only had a massage chair. Conrad and Dean had their cameras out shooting various things that caught their eyes, so we continued walking down towards one of the Prince Hotels at Yakebitai. We checked their shop, before we found they had massage chairs as well. It was 100Y for 10 mins, so we decided to just go with it. It was actually not a bad way to spend 10 mins, and although nothing as good as proper hands on massage, was relaxing nonetheless.
We then started the trek back up the hill towards the hotel. I got some weird looks from people, as I only had a pair of shorts, some sneakers, a t-shirt and a jacket on. With the temperature only sitting at about -3deg or so, I wasn't that cold, and can survive quite easily in shorts and a shirt at this temp, provided I keep moving. We kept on walking, and shooting cameras and got back to the hotel. We had some gyoza and ramern, and this powered us up for our next little expedition. We decided to check out some of the other souvenir stores around the top of Ichinose, and spend an hour just pottering around. This is probably what we all needed, as it was relaxing and didn't require us to do a lot of strenuous activity. We headed back to the hotel where I started some washing and hopped in the onsen. I'm getting better with the whole nudity thing. As long as you don't look, you don't get as uncomfortable.
Dean and Conrad were now already in the lounge area tapping away, so I brought my computer down and joined them. Others were watching Sumo on the TV (there is a big championship at the moment, with an Estonian guy winning currently). As the afternoon progressed, the sky started to get all overcast, so that we thought there might be early snow.
By the time 5.30 rolled around, it was dark, and we were hungry. I wanted steak so we went across to Victoria to see if they had the buffet on tonight, but with the place regularly booked out with school kids, it was a students only affair. We then quickly decided to head to Jalon, a bar two hotels down from the main lift area. We've gone there before, but this is usually dependent on weather, as it is a pain to hike back up the hill when it's extemely cold and windy. Fortunately, there was nearly no wind and only light snow falling.
The Chalet Shiga (where Jalon is) is the place the Austrian Ski team stayed during 1998 winter Olympics, and usually they have a big screen projector playing various ski/snow events, and various jerseys from ski events hanging on the wall. We arrived just on 6.00, so happy hour it was. I ordered a Shiga Kogen Pale Ale (Chris, you would love this, as it's hoppy and very similar to some of yours), Dean got a DPA and we all got food. Their menu wasn't massive, (they only have a small oven/kitchen area behind the bar), but Dean and Mum got a Beef Porter Stew, I got a Chicken Salsa burger, and Conrad and Whitney both ordered a bolognese. We sat there for a while eating and slowly drinking our beers, before heading back to the hotel about 7pm.
On the way we stopped at the other Yamazaki conbini at the Shiga Olympic Hotel. I grabbed a coffee ice cream, Conrad grabbed a Haagen Dasz and Whitney chose a Crunky mint icecream. It seems strange but I like eating icecreams even when it's below zero.
We sat around watching VS Arashi (a variety/game show hosted by boy band Arashi) before turning the telly off and nodding off around 8.30. So now I'm here typing this at 5.30 in the morning, because my body tells me 9 hours is enough sleep....
Pictures for the past couple of days are up at https://picasaweb.google.com/sciclone
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