First Snowboarding!
I went snowboarding for the first time yesterday! I went to a place called Takasu(I think?) in Gifu prefecture. We took a night-bus and got there in about 5 hours from Osaka.
My friends, Todd and Devin, taught me the basics and had me go to the top of the mountain.
We rode the gondola up and I set down my board and got down real low to take a picture of what lay before me.
If any of you have been snowboarding before, you'll notice the cover they give you to protect you from your board in the gondola is still on my board and I had to walk back to the gondola station to put it in the box they had set out for those.
Most of the things I saw on my snowboarding trip were from this perspective, as most of my time was spent on my butt. As simple as it was to stand up the first time while practicing at the bottom of the hill, I couldn't seem to figure out how to after that, nor could I control the board anymore, and the beginner's paths were still pretty narrow and my board seemed to be attracted to the really steep slopes at the side. When I tried to stand back up on the board, trying to keep my weight back so the board didn't move made the board slide down the slope faster than I could shift my weight up to right myself, or I put too much weight forward and started moving before I could balance, and not moving in the right direction. You can imagine how stressful it was getting up while sitting next to the edge of the trail...
Anyway, after a while it was taking a really long time to get down the mountain because I couldn't stand up, so I tried walking the rest of the way. Todd and Devin found me about their tenth trip down they mountain (they saw me from the lift one time and Devin figured I needed help), so they watched me for a little while and gave me some pointers. I was doing find until I couldn't see them anymore, then I had problems standing up again, so I tried to walk down again, got to the third to last stretch on the beginner's course, tried riding again, and just couldn't stand up, so I hoofed it the rest of the way down and decided for a rest and some lunch before practicing again on the bottom of the hill.
Thankfully, Devin would have none of it. He urged me up to the mountain again, and after I started grasping more of what they were telling me, I finally felt like I got the hang of standing up. Devin and Todd stayed with me, they took me back to the first beginner's slope, and told me to get up and take the straight-away nice and easy. It actually went pretty well! I think that was the longest stretch where I was able to stand on the board. I think that was one of the times where I fell really bad, though.
As bad as I was at standing, apparently I'm worse at falling down. Near the top of the mountain the second time, I took a particularly bad fall. My body's pretty tough, so more than hurting when I hit the snow and rolled a bit, it was kinda fun . However, instead of aiming for my butt, like I'm supposed to, I just tried to fall backwards, which usually meant landing on my wrists, and one time it was really bad. I sat there for a bit, holding my wrist and trying to get over the pain. I thought about "icing" it, just shoving it in the snow, because I could tell it was already swelling, though it wasn't broken. The guys said I should probably just ride down the mountain if it hurt too much to continue, but I felt like I'd be doing them and myself a disservice if I gave up that easily. It was just my wrist, and if I could avoid falling like that again, it wouldn't be a problem. However, I did continue to fall, and even when I didn't hit my wrist, pushing up to stand up also put a lot of weight on it, and eventually the swelling and pain starting moving up my forearm.
Under a suggestion from Devin, I tied the leash for the board onto my other leg and slid down the mountain using the board as a sleigh and my heels for breaks. As I soon found out, as did the snowboarder I took out with me, this is difficult to control, requires that your heels stay deep in the snow, and is impossible on the steeper slopes. It did get me going a good deal of the remaining distance to the ski lift, though. I walked down the advanced slope to the ski lift, and although the sign said no one could ride down under any circumstances, I showed my wrist to the operator and asked him what I should do, and he said he'd call the patrol and they'd take care of it.
The operator was an older Japanese man. Since I'm foreign, he spoke to me in simple Japanese words words and gestures, but he was really nice and tried to keep me company while we waited.
"Patrol... come... from there!" He pointed up the mountain.
"Patrol... clothes... this sign!" He pointed to his red coat and made an X on it.
He pointed excitedly to the thermometer which showed a temperature of -2 or 3 degrees celsius. Apparently it was a cold day on the mountain!
We saw the patrol shredding down the mountain and I thanked him for his help as the patrol woman led me onto the ski lift. She carried my board for me and took me to the patrol office there they applied this patch to my skin that was about the thickness of a bandage but smelled like peppermint and felt nice and cool.
A few of you may have noticed that the right side of my hand in this picture is covered in what looks like a bit of ice. That's because when I was trying to get around the buses to take a picture of this ADORABLE SNOWMAN (which is actually about the third I saw that day, and the third I'd ever seen in real life)...
I slipped and caught myself ON the snowman... WITH that hand. Ouch!
Speaking of ouch, it actually hurts to type, but I figured since this was a big thing for me, I would regret it if I didn't write about it while it was still fresh in my mind, like a lot of the things I haven't written about yet that I've done with Yoko (sorry, Yoko!).
I did finally upload pictures from those things so I should update a few more times in the coming days when my hand is feeling up to it.
I had a lot of fun snowboarding and hope to do it again! Big thanks to Devin and Todd. BYAH!
My friends, Todd and Devin, taught me the basics and had me go to the top of the mountain.
We rode the gondola up and I set down my board and got down real low to take a picture of what lay before me.
If any of you have been snowboarding before, you'll notice the cover they give you to protect you from your board in the gondola is still on my board and I had to walk back to the gondola station to put it in the box they had set out for those.
Most of the things I saw on my snowboarding trip were from this perspective, as most of my time was spent on my butt. As simple as it was to stand up the first time while practicing at the bottom of the hill, I couldn't seem to figure out how to after that, nor could I control the board anymore, and the beginner's paths were still pretty narrow and my board seemed to be attracted to the really steep slopes at the side. When I tried to stand back up on the board, trying to keep my weight back so the board didn't move made the board slide down the slope faster than I could shift my weight up to right myself, or I put too much weight forward and started moving before I could balance, and not moving in the right direction. You can imagine how stressful it was getting up while sitting next to the edge of the trail...
Anyway, after a while it was taking a really long time to get down the mountain because I couldn't stand up, so I tried walking the rest of the way. Todd and Devin found me about their tenth trip down they mountain (they saw me from the lift one time and Devin figured I needed help), so they watched me for a little while and gave me some pointers. I was doing find until I couldn't see them anymore, then I had problems standing up again, so I tried to walk down again, got to the third to last stretch on the beginner's course, tried riding again, and just couldn't stand up, so I hoofed it the rest of the way down and decided for a rest and some lunch before practicing again on the bottom of the hill.
Thankfully, Devin would have none of it. He urged me up to the mountain again, and after I started grasping more of what they were telling me, I finally felt like I got the hang of standing up. Devin and Todd stayed with me, they took me back to the first beginner's slope, and told me to get up and take the straight-away nice and easy. It actually went pretty well! I think that was the longest stretch where I was able to stand on the board. I think that was one of the times where I fell really bad, though.
As bad as I was at standing, apparently I'm worse at falling down. Near the top of the mountain the second time, I took a particularly bad fall. My body's pretty tough, so more than hurting when I hit the snow and rolled a bit, it was kinda fun . However, instead of aiming for my butt, like I'm supposed to, I just tried to fall backwards, which usually meant landing on my wrists, and one time it was really bad. I sat there for a bit, holding my wrist and trying to get over the pain. I thought about "icing" it, just shoving it in the snow, because I could tell it was already swelling, though it wasn't broken. The guys said I should probably just ride down the mountain if it hurt too much to continue, but I felt like I'd be doing them and myself a disservice if I gave up that easily. It was just my wrist, and if I could avoid falling like that again, it wouldn't be a problem. However, I did continue to fall, and even when I didn't hit my wrist, pushing up to stand up also put a lot of weight on it, and eventually the swelling and pain starting moving up my forearm.
Under a suggestion from Devin, I tied the leash for the board onto my other leg and slid down the mountain using the board as a sleigh and my heels for breaks. As I soon found out, as did the snowboarder I took out with me, this is difficult to control, requires that your heels stay deep in the snow, and is impossible on the steeper slopes. It did get me going a good deal of the remaining distance to the ski lift, though. I walked down the advanced slope to the ski lift, and although the sign said no one could ride down under any circumstances, I showed my wrist to the operator and asked him what I should do, and he said he'd call the patrol and they'd take care of it.
The operator was an older Japanese man. Since I'm foreign, he spoke to me in simple Japanese words words and gestures, but he was really nice and tried to keep me company while we waited.
"Patrol... come... from there!" He pointed up the mountain.
"Patrol... clothes... this sign!" He pointed to his red coat and made an X on it.
He pointed excitedly to the thermometer which showed a temperature of -2 or 3 degrees celsius. Apparently it was a cold day on the mountain!
We saw the patrol shredding down the mountain and I thanked him for his help as the patrol woman led me onto the ski lift. She carried my board for me and took me to the patrol office there they applied this patch to my skin that was about the thickness of a bandage but smelled like peppermint and felt nice and cool.
A few of you may have noticed that the right side of my hand in this picture is covered in what looks like a bit of ice. That's because when I was trying to get around the buses to take a picture of this ADORABLE SNOWMAN (which is actually about the third I saw that day, and the third I'd ever seen in real life)...
I slipped and caught myself ON the snowman... WITH that hand. Ouch!
Speaking of ouch, it actually hurts to type, but I figured since this was a big thing for me, I would regret it if I didn't write about it while it was still fresh in my mind, like a lot of the things I haven't written about yet that I've done with Yoko (sorry, Yoko!).
I did finally upload pictures from those things so I should update a few more times in the coming days when my hand is feeling up to it.
I had a lot of fun snowboarding and hope to do it again! Big thanks to Devin and Todd. BYAH!