Skiing in Hakuba, Nagano

Friday, February 11th, was National Foundation Day. Now, I don't know what National Foundation really is. All I know, is it was a holiday!!! So, in celebration of National Foundation (or maybe just because ;-) a group of us from the English church decided to go skiing. Now before, I go too far into my story, I should mention that I have "skied" once -- more like tumbling down a Santa Fe, New Mexico mountain wearing a pair of skies and hoping that a dear Terhune friend or two would rescue me. Sarah, on the other hand, has never skied. Everyone else -- well, let's just say that they were probably born in skies. Anyway, back to my story... To properly ski in Japan, one must trek to Nagano (the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics). Its not particularly close to Hamamatsu so we took at night bus.

First we left at 10 p.m...

...then we arrived at 3 a.m....

...we awoke to a lovely snowy sunrise around 6...

...and ate chicken Caesar wraps at Subway for breakfast...

...took a group shot in all of our bus-head glory...

...then it was time to hit the slopes!!

How naive we were!

And stylish too!!
(thanks to one of my teachers, I didn't have to rent any skiing gear
--- I got to borrow his 80s ensemble instead!!)

But we were fearless...

...because we had expert teachers such as Suguru-san (above) and Daisuke-san (whose picture sadly got buried in the snow in a tumbling camera -- not mine I might add ;-)

So up the ski lift we rose...

...with our skis waving free!

Look at those innocent smiles!

And then we skied...
(if you can call it that!)

Finally we had the faces of reason...

...but no broken bones!!!

...and some really cool pictures of very snowy homes...

...okay, I admit, I don't think they were homes, but what else would rhyme with lodge...

...except maybe a mountain mirage?