Christmas Break - Skiing
Friday, January 17, 2014
The next day after the monkey park we went skiing at Shiga Kogen, which is a huge skiing area. It has like 70-something ski lifts. The pictures here are from the bus ride. I don't have any of where we actually skied.
The bus ride was really pretty and I enjoyed it until we got stuck in traffic for a little bit because of a car that I think had broken down. I didn't really mind waiting there and that wasn't the problem. But when we finally were able to go (maybe just about five minutes later, it wasn't long) we had to pass the car and the bus went soooo close to the edge and that was kind of freaky.
We eventually got off the bus at Hasuike because we had read that it was good for beginners. We bought our lift tickets there and got our rental stuff. I was excited that I had pink skis with flowers on them.
Then we went outside and tried to find where the actual skiing was. We walked towards where we thought it was and then put our skis on for a little bit. I had trouble just getting them on and then a lot of trouble just skiing on flat ground. But we were in the wrong area and it ended up being where a more difficult course was. We went back to the building we had come from and I asked for directions. The girl there told me that Hasuike and Maruike were the easiest courses and told me how to get to them. We walked around for quite a while and still couldn't find the actual Hasuike course. So then we just took the bus to Maruike. We waited a while for that and it when we rode the bus it wasn't even that far at all and we could have easily walked (well, sort of... I hated walking around in the stupid ski boots). At least it was a free shuttle bus though.
I had trouble just getting to the ski lift. I couldn't even ski on flat ground. It took a lot more upper body strength than I thought it would. I slowly made my way to the ski lift but it just got worse from there. I dropped my poles when getting on the ski lift and then fell out getting out of the ski lift. It was really hard to get up with skis on. Then the beginning of the course was probably the biggest hill of the course and it was difficult and I tried going down it by going side to side but I kept falling. Eventually I just had to take the skis of and slide down.
The rest of the course wasn't as bad, but I still kept falling a lot and it just wasn't fun at all. I was getting really really worn out every time I fell and had to get up again and felt super sore. Though at the very end of the course I actually started getting the hang of it and was able to turn about five or six times without falling. It still wasn't fun though.
By then I was feeling really tired and hungry so we got lunch at a restaurant there. We got some chips and pizza. The pizza wasn't very good and didn't have enough sauce and I didn't like the green peppers or mushrooms on it. Usually I like mushrooms but they just weren't appetizing right then. I didn't eat much pizza. I was hungry but everything seemed so unappetizing right then. I couldn't even really eat chips and they were just normal chips.
I then waited in that building for a little while while Jonathan went out and skied a little bit more. I started getting really really cold because my clothes were kind of wet, but I was feeling really ridiculously cold and shivering badly. So when Jonathan got back I wanted to let him ski a little more but I really just needed to get out of there. I offered to go back to the hotel by myself and let him stay there but he didn't want to do that.
So it turned out that was I was just getting sick and I think I had a fever. So that's probably partially why I was feeling so weak when skiing. Also I felt super sore when skiing and was sure that it would just be worse later, how it usually is with exercise, but later I wasn't sore. So I think I was more just aching from a fever.
I don't think I would really enjoy skiing anyways, but I think it was just extra bad timing then. I felt kind of nauseous the rest of the day and off and on for the next few days. Though I felt better for a little while that evening and Jonathan and I were able to play table tennis.
So yeah... that was my super fun day of skiing!