Day 17 - Hakuba - Everyday is Leg Day When You're Skiing!

Despite some rumblings overnight(!), we woke up today to a clear day, fit for skiing! With the lesson that we'd had with Adam, we felt prepared enough to hit the slopes by ourselves, and that's exactly what we did! Our second full day in Hakuba was spent back at Immori, before we had an early finish for a nap, and a quiet dinner.

Overnight, I had a pretty disrupted sleep. The air in the pension is a little strange - perhaps it's a mix of the altitude, the central heating, or the hard pillows, but I've been waking up with a heady cold like feeling each morning, which has put a bit of a damper on things. The beds aren't super comfortable either, and so any light movements woke me up. Of all these first world problems however, I seemed to miss the most interesting part of last night, which was experienced a treamour. Adelaide vaguely remembers waking for a few seconds, when she heard everything shaking, with a low rumble behind it, before it eventually passed. After a while, I began to remember waking up to similar circumstances at one point. It wasn't a bus or vehicle passing by our window though, as there weren't any lights accompanied with it, and it didn't have the higher pitched engine noise accompanied with it (Adelaide cites that the windows were rattling). I'd post a picture as evidence, but it didn't seem to be enough for the Japanese Meteorological Agency to concern itself with, so you'll have to take our word for it.

Our lesson yesterday had left us a tired and sore, but not so severely that we weren't keen for another day ahead of us. We followed a similar routine to yesterday, waking up at 7.30 for brekkie downstairs at 8. Yakata had outdone himself again, this morning producing breakfast burgerettes, made up of a small burger bun (assumed to be homemade), with a poached egg, strips of bacon and avocado for a paste. There were garlic mushrooms and steamed spinach to accompany it around the base. We also had a side of fresh fruit again (although this time it was a different assortment).

We scoffed breakfast, and went downstairs to get our gear sorted for the day. Adelaide was super keen and got ready in a few minutes, so she went outside while she waited for me to faff around with the many layers and boots. It was another awkward walk down the main road to the bus stop, perhaps tomorrow we might just ski it, and we waited till 9.10 for our bus to turn up. Thankfully the driver and bus where the same as yesterday, so he knew we where we headed. The bus was far more busier too, and Adelaide and I snatched up some of the last seats.

As the weather was clearer this morning, we could see through to the mountains which Hakuba was flanked by, and it made for a spectacular drive out to the slopes, and when we finally arrived at imori, we could almost see to the top of the visible side of the runs, as they escaped back up the mountain higher. Without needing to wait around for our lesson today, we were able to jump right in, of course, after we'd had a starter coffee and hot chocolate.

We chose the same slope we were familiar with for the morning, and when we went over it was very quiet, so we were able to get a few runs in, mostly uninterrupted. As the morning progress, more schools came over, as well as another group booking which made things more congested. After 5 or 6 runs on the newbie slope, we mustered up the courage to go down the 'middle' run.

I realise at this point a map might be helpful! Below I drew the yellow boxes around the area we stuck near. We got dropped by our bus at 'Base Centre Iimori', and what I've been referring to the Newbie run is actually called "Merry Land Course", while what I've been calling the middle run is "Soft Cream Course". The two red runs (intermediate), on the right side of the yellow box are extremely steep, and visible from the rest stop, and form an amazing foreground. It just so happens that much of what is in the Yellow Box is all we can see when we arrive, outside of that it's hidden by trees, the mountain, or clouds. It'd be great to come back and venture to the top, and even better, ski down one day!

As you can see, we finished our last run for the morning on the Merry Land course, before we took the chair lift back up, and this time took a right turn straight off it. After cutting across the "snow park" which was where people could do tricks, we had hoped to have a clear run down the soft cream course, into the rest house for lunch. Adelaide got cut off near a jump by some self centred skiier, so she lost it and felt a little awkwardly, her first major fall. She tried her best and managed to get back up, so we took it easy on the way down, and slid in for lunch.

Instead of having Mos Burger again today, we opted for the caferteria options, which offered quite a range, and was much more impressive than I had anticipated. A long wait in the queue made us cold and hungry, so I ended up ordering Japanese curry with friend pork, and Adelaide tried a Spicy Chicken Namban curry - and we both had a side of chips to fill us up. Both our meals were massive though, so the chips were redundant, but yummy.

We sat for a bit and absorbed our meals, hesitant to go back out into the cold. We persisted though, and went to put on our skis. Just as I was about to finish up clicking in, we ran into Adam, who was there with another class. We didn't see him out on the slopes, which makes us think he had an advanced class.

After lunch, and our bad first impression, we decided to try the soft cream course. It had a little bit of a steeper incline at the start, which I found made it difficult to get my technique down pat, but the end of the run was wider and a little bumpier, which was better for practice. After a while though, it got busy with people trying to do tricks, and being towards the bottom of some of the intermediate and hard runs, would often get the speedfreaks and experts zooming past.

In light of that, after 5 or so runs, we moved back to the Soft Cream course to finish the day. Lunch had lulled the course, and we even managed to get 5 runs in in about 25 minutes, with very few delays on the chairlift (apart from one time when Adelaide almost missed the chair, and another when she abandoned me for the seat in front).

Pro Skiier

Up the 'Milky Four Chair Lift'

Looking at the Straight Whisky Course

Watching people wipe out on the jumps was entertaining

Looking back down the valley - great visibility today!

Nearly 1.30pm, we were thoroughly stuffed, and decided to get the 2 oclock bus home. We finished with a final run on the Merry Land course, and was able to slide almost all the way out to our bus stop. Because we had some time to kill, we went and bought another coffee and hot chocolate from the Crepe van which had been tempting us the day before - and while we were ordering, realised that it wasn't a van like the trailers we normally have, instead, it was an actual van that had been so caked in snow the front seemed to have dissapeared. We drank our warming beverages while we waited for the bus to show up. It was a bit of a sad sight, as we watched the guy who had served us sit in his cold, orange little van, while "All By Myself" played. I think he must've heard us commenting about it, because the song soon changed to something a little more upbeat.

We boarded the next bus that came, but we had a change so we jumped back onto our actual bus, with our actual driver (the same guy who had driven us there), and it was empty that early in the afternoon, only two other pairs of skiiers, both of which got dropped on the main drag of Echoland. We made a beeline back to our Pension, before coming back up stairs where Adelaide promptly had a nap, and I soon joined her after I did some internetting.

Fearing that we'd sleep into the nighttime, we woke up around 4.30pm, and chilled until nearly 6.30 when we went to have a soak in the onsen. We didn't have any plans for dinner, so newly warmed, we braved teh cold and took a walk down the main street looking for some place to eat. I took my nikon out too, and did some rough practicing of manual photos in the dark. Echoland is quite attractive at night, and it made for some good photos (although it's another situation where you could spend a good few hours with a tripod... and provided you weren't too cold).

Our accommodation!

One of the many blind intersections dotted around Echoland

Down the main street

Dinner

Cold

Cosy

Eventually we found a Bar and Grill that did steak, and after Adelaide spied they did wedges, we were sold. We had an entree of Wedges topped with cheese and bacon, with mustard sauce, before we both ordered an Aussie rib eye. They were filling steaks, but not enough to fill us all the way up, so we got some brownies and ice cream for dessert to. Like most places along the main street, it's a bit of a touristy place, so we ended up paying far more than we usual did for dinner, but we figured if we're skiing again tomorrow, we'll be so tired we can just eat the two cup noodles we bought from the Konbini the other day.

After our meal, we waddled home in the dark. Full, tired, and now warm. Tomorrow, we'll have another day of skiing, hopefully making the most of the time we have left in the snow, and maybe even adventure up Toomi if we feel confident. Until then, Goodnight!