I don’t even know where to start the story of my ski trip. There’s just too much I could say… and it’s nighttime here and I’m tired. So here’s some random points about the trip:

• there were about 100 Japanese students and 9 gaijin (foreign) students… Lucy and Tom from Aussie, Megan from NZ, Amanda and Leah from USA, Trygve from Norway, Ronan from Ireland, Maria from Spain and me
• we took a night bus from Hirakata to Nagano, about 7 hours, and arrived Monday morning… the bus ride included a mandatory game of bingo
• the weather/conditions on the hill were pretty perfect… sunny and warm, but still good snow… no new snow, but a good base and no ice
• we paid 24,000 yen (~$230) for transportation, 2 nights hotel, 2 breakfasts, 2 dinners, 2 days lift passes and all rental gear (which was pretty bad, but oh well…)
• the food was pretty good, there’s a photo of Maria serving up the nabe for dinner
• one of the rules was that we had to ski in groups, which was sort of annoying but we knew it well in advance so couldn’t complain… and we had to wear numbers which made us feel like we were 10 years old… and the group host/instructor didn’t speak english
• I made some Japanese friends in my group, Tsubasa, Yuki, Guki, Anja and Satoe
• after skiing each day everyone had a bath… pretty normal, right? um, not quite… all the girls bathe together, and all the guys bathe together. ooooh Japanese culture… it’s kind of nice actually, like a really big hot tub that’s really really hot, with showers all around it so everyone is clean before getting into the bath… the only weird thing is that you are naked, and you can’t wear a bathing suit… it’s quite offensive I’ve heard
• the last night there were 5 fireworks, and then a dance party… which was 3 hours of Japanese kids dancing in a big circle and then all moshing in the middle… then back out into a circle… then back in to mosh again…
• there was karaoke on the bus ride home for an hour, which was probably the most annoying thing I’ve ever experienced in my life
• but it was an awesome trip… quite the experience being around 100 Japanese students for 3 and a half days straight… the skiing was nice (not as strenuous as skiing with the fam in Fernie) and there were a lot of fun and interesting times.