I started this entry thinking it would be
\nbrief… wanting it to be brief. Oh well. You get this,
\ninstead.<\/i><\/p>\n
So, my weekend went a little like
\nthis:<\/p>\n
Friday<\/u><\/b>:<\/p>\n
Left work early. Got back to dormitory to do some panic laundry and
\npacking. Left the dormitory on my bike at around 8:30pm, and caught a
\ntrain to Nagoya around 9:00pm. At 10:30pm, we (Lance and I) met up with
\nthe rest of the group (there was about 30 of us, in total). In a bus
\nthat had chandeliers, we left Nagoya with our sites set for Nagano. Our
\nfirst stop was at a konbini to acquire liquor. Almost every one of us
\nhad two seats to ourselves. Introductions were made and all was
\ngood.<\/p>\n
Saturday<\/u><\/b>:<\/p>\n
Arrived at Kurohime Kogen Snow Park at 6:00am – just in time to catch
\nthe sun rise. The only sleep I managed to get was on the aisle floor
\nwhere Suntory whiskey had previously been spilled – a little sticky,
\nbut it was well worth the precious-few hours of shut-eye. We stayed in
\na lodge called Kitchen PaPa’s. Earlier, we were told that there were
\ngoing to be 4 people per room. All the rooms looked quite nice: 4
\nwestern-style beds and hard wood floor. However, the room I was in was
\nJapanese style and had FIVE (western) people designated to it. Lies!!
\nAnyways, we had a good laugh about what we were gonna do about sleeping
\narrangements (more on that in a bit), and rested as much as we could
\nbefore breakfast.<\/p>\n
8:00am: Ate a well suited, light-but-filling,
\npre-ski\/snowboard breakfast, probably made by PaPa, himself. Thanks,
\nPaPa. It took a while to get organized, but eventually we all got our
\nequipment and hopped in a bus that took us to the slopes. I was using
\nrental boots, board, pants, and jacket. Lance and one other guy had the
\nsame rental outfit, so we all looked like we were part of a team, or
\nsomething. Team Suck.<\/p>\n
A little more prep at the base of the mountain, and we
\nnaturally just kinda split off into groups. Considering I’ve only been
\nsnowboarding 2 times prior, I was not very confident in my abilities…
\nbut I didn’t want to stick around at the base of the mountain while
\ngetting pointers on how to stand, etc. At this point, I met Yoko, who
\nhad similar intentions. As it turned out, we met 2 other girls from the
\ngroup, who were better than both
\nof us. I followed them down our first run and waited for Yoko. Yoko
\nnever came. At this point, I lost Yoko. Yes, that was rather quick. =\/
\nCatching up with the other girls, I boarded with them for most of the
\nday.<\/p>\n
The mountain was quite nice. Instead of tickets, you got a
\ntoken that you had to wave across a sensor at the gates before getting
\non a lift. This could safely be put in your pocket, so you just had
\nmove your jacket pocket in front of the sensor. The line-ups were the
\nbest part! There were none! The longest I had to wait in line was
\nprobably 4 minutes! Ridiculous! I’ve sat in 45 minute line-ups, before!
\nNever again…. (not that I can help it).<\/p>\n
4:30pm: We all meet at the parking lot and go back to the
\nlodge… with a couple people missing. :-O (they went night-skiing, I
\nbelieve, and thought it was a good idea not to inform anyone). Next on
\nthe agenda was… the ONSEN! Our lodge didn’t have very large
\nfacilities (2 person bath…) so we all piled into the bus, once again,
\nand headed to a nearby hotel and borrowed their facilities. There was
\neven a masseuse who gave a quick massage to a couple of us while we
\nwere waiting for others to come out! *adds ‘willingness to give
\n(sensual) massage’ to list of requirements for girlfriend.*<\/p>\n
Dinner at 7:00pm. Corn soup, wine, a couple french fries and
\nmarinated<\/i> steak – by far, the best chunk of meat
\nI’ve had in Japan. Reminded me of meals from home… would just need a
\nbig helping of caesar salad. So… dinner was awesome. \ud83d\ude09 Despite the
\nfact that we all could have slept at 8pm, a night of drinking, games,
\nand the obvious combination of both ensued.<\/p>\n
I already mentioned the sleeping arrangements. By the time I
\nreturned to my room, I saw four futons laid out on the tatami. It was
\ndark, and I didn’t want to wake anyone, so I chose a bed I was sure was
\nempty and laid down. Yes, only four beds could possible fit on the
\nfloor (table removed). So, when the next guy came in to go to sleep, I
\nwas going to help him squeeze another futon onto the floor. However,
\nwhen he opened the closet, there was a pause….<\/p>\n
him: “What the… someone’s sleeping in
\nhere!”<\/i>
\nme: “…huh? In the closet? What, are you
\nserious?~!”<\/i>
\n*Lance groans from within the closet.*<\/i>
\nWe burst out laughing and head out into the hallway so as we don’t wake
\nup anyone else in the room.<\/p>\n
\n
Sunday<\/u><\/b>:<\/p>\n
I finally was able to have a good sleep. Breakfast was at 8:00am. It
\nwas raining, so only one person wanted to go skiing. Almost everybody
\nelse decided to get on the bus, once more. First stop was what was
\nreferred to as a “soba doujou,” where we made soba noodles and ate
\nthem. Then, we did the ONSEN thing, again! This time, different onsen.
\nAfter that, we went back to the lodge, finished packing up, and left
\naround 2:00pm. We made two 20 minute stops on the way back, and arrived
\nin Nagoya at about 7:00pm.<\/p>\n
I had an awesome weekend. I met lots of new people and had
\nlots of fun. I will try to go snowboarding more when I get back to
\nCanada. This trip rekindled my desire to travel, and I picked up a
\ncouple Okinawa brochures, today. Anyone wanna come take diving lessons
\nwith me? \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I started this entry thinking it would be brief… wanting it to be brief. Oh well. You get this, instead. So, my weekend went a little like this: Friday: Left work early. Got back to dormitory to do some panic laundry and packing. Left the dormitory on my bike at around 8:30pm, and caught a… Continue reading I saw a Kitty-chan snow cave on the weekend….<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[78,211],"class_list":["post-703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-japan","tag-ljimport","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4jEMb-bl","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenbrown.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenbrown.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenbrown.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenbrown.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenbrown.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenbrown.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":748,"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenbrown.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703\/revisions\/748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenbrown.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenbrown.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenbrown.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}