This morning we woke up surprisingly better than how we had gone to bed; Adelaide's knee had stopped aching, and despite my sore calf muscles, I was full of beans and ready to hit the slopes once again. Following our skiing regime, we were up by 7.30, and down at brekkie at 8. Yakata served up some breakfast wraps this morning, which contained chicken and spinach, and were made from homemade kale. I've just realised that it's a real shame we haven't had the chance to get a photo of any of his delicious creations. We had a side of fruit, and it was served with coffee, as always.
When we were filled up from breakfast, we went downstairs to get our gear. While we were down there we got into conversation with Marni about where we should go skiing today, and despite their suggestions about going to Happo, we persisted with our plans to go back to Iimori for our last day. Not to discredit their expertise, but in the end, we were happy with our choice.
The walk to the Weather Report didn't seem so bad this morning as we'd finally gotten some experience under our belt at this point, and when we arrived, we bought some coffees from the cafe across the road, called the "Sounds like cafe". We'd seen people go there each morning previously, but I had no idea how popular it was until I went into to get our takeaways, and the place was bustling, truly deceptive from the outside.
Nonetheless, the cappucino that I had was the closest one to home, despite it was still a little off, but Adelaides' hot chocolate didn't disappoint. It was a bit of a wait until our bus arrived at 9.05, noticibly empty now that it was Monday. As were getting on, we heard another newbie ask the driver where he was going, tentative that this was her bus. She hopped on, and when we arrived we found out it was her first time too, and that she was getting her beginner lesson today. Adelaide pointer her in the direction of the rest house, showed her where the lift passes were and where to go, and she was very thankful.
We got skiied up, and made our way up the four seater lift to the Soft Cream Course start, where we slid over to the Merry Land for our first few runs to get warmed up and reaquainted. On the chairlift, we marvelled at the brilliant clear day we had, and how empty the place was. Being the weekend on our two first days, it had been packed, with always a short line at the lifts, and many people to miss on the way down. Today however, it was close to empty. Apart from a few people spread here and there, you pretty much had the runs to yourself.
We made the most of this fact and made 5 runs down the soft cream course to start, zooming by the beginners, and we were feeling good about our technique. In light of that, on our 6th run of the day, we moved over to the Soft Cream course for a step up. The top of the Soft cream course flows on from one of the more intermediate runs up the mountain, so it has a fair bit of a slope on it (at least we thought so), and it was daughting to take on so inexperienced at the moment. We chalked it down to 'the best way to learn is by doing', and so we did. As it was so empty we had the ability to go slow the first few times, and the few times that we did get out of our depth, speed wise, we were able to just snow plow back to safety.
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| Pretty good views! |
After another few runs down the Soft Cream course, we decided to head back to the Merry land course for a refresher, and to hone our technique, as we'd noticed that we were beginning to forget a few things (such as shifting our weight and the difference between having the skis positioned). Also, the Merry Land chairlift was much faster, and we were able to get a 7 minute round trip, as opposed to the Soft Cream course's 4 seater chairlift which was far slower, and took us closer to 15. While the course was longer, the longer wait in the chairlift put a damper on things.
After we'd sorted out our technique again, we did the Soft Cream course a few more times, and after deciding to go for lunch, were satisfied with how we were progressing. Both Adelaide and I were having a few occasional slips, and I had determined that I had a stronger turn than the other, but we were both better than we were that morning, and it felt good. Because of our expensive dinner the night before, we were running a little low on hard money, down to 5000 Yen, so we opted for Mos Burger as it was the cheaper lunch option at the Rest House.
This time I bought a cheese burger instead of a Mos Burger, as we've found they love to load up sauce on their signature dish, and we have a had a track record with being able to mysteriously spread it around. Nonetheless, it hit the spot, and after a break to take it in, we went back out. For the rest of the afternoon, we continued smashing the Soft Cream course, and by the end of the day, we had gotten it down pretty well. We still took the easier exit off the lift, which lead onto the lesser slope, but we were able to get our turns down nice and large, and I was even beginning to get my skis parrallel in places.
In seeing that we had some packing to do, as well as planning for our big transit day tomorrow, we got the 2 oclock bus back again. It would've been nice to get the full day in, but we were tired at that point, and after finishing a run of good... runs, we decided it was best to finish while we were ahead. Adelaide planned that when we got back to the Weather Report stop, we could return our gear, as it was only a few blocks down and would save us the walk. However, I raised the point that Adelaide had rented her ski clothes from there, and that we wouldn't have any shoes, so we arranged that I would mind the ski gear, while she returned to the pension to grab the replacement for when we leave.
And so our plan went into action. While Addy was careful walking back to the pension, I went about making some snowballs for her arrival back, however when I saw how slippery the road really was and that Addy was walking very slowly, I forgo my barrage. I hope that on our drive out tomorrow that I see someone else took advantage of my arsenal, and put them to good use. We had another 3 blocks of careful foot placement down the road, until we got to the Rental shop, and were disappointed.
We had seen many notifications online and in the shop about their opening hours (being 7-10am and 4-6pm), but for some reason had thought that was just for pick ups, and we thought that they'd be open all day for returns. This was not the case, as their stated opening hours were, well... their opening hours. Being 2.30pm, and too long to wait for it to reopen, Addy got a little annoyed and so we had another fun 20 minute walk back 200m up the road. We dumped our gear in the drying room, and I got it sorted for the afternoon, when we were finally able to return it.
At least we were back in the warmth! It wasn't snowing or windy today, but it had taken it's toll nonetheless, and we were cold. We spent some time procrastinating, before we got down to business and figured out the details of our next day. Traveling to Mt Fuji is definitely doable, but will just take some time tomorrow. We sorted out the buses and trains we have to catch, before we realised we still had a final payment for the ski package to make. They hadn't notified us, but we felt bad not paying it before we left. Adelaide talked to Yakata and he was very accommodating, but that still didn't change our stance.
When 4pm rolled around again, we layered up and went downstairs to get our gear. Treading slowly, we inched our way down the to the rental place, which this time, was open, and we ran into Dylan again. He was very carefree about our gear, and seemed happy that we'd returned it, but didn't feel the need to check it was all there (although, I suppose skis are hard to smuggle... that and he had Addy's Credit card details just in case). Once we'd dropped them off, we went to the Konbini above it for our dinner.
Breaking one of our last thousand Yen notes, we splurged and got a large bread roll, a 4 pack of crossaints, a dessert bun, some chocolate, another cup noodle and some chips. This is what was going to be our super nutritious dinner. It was still a little too early for dinner, so we watched some more Modern Family until it was 6 pm.
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| What $12 can buy in a Konbini! |
Dinner tonight was a selection of:
- Entree: Crossiant, moderately warmed to Adelaides liking in the microwave
- Main: Cup Noodle with dried prawns removed, made with natural kettle water, served with a vending machine Asahi
- Dessert, Two Options: Meiji Chocolate (Adelaide), or Dessert Bun (Dylan).
But hey, we can't live like kings all the time, and despite the cup noodles were a bit of a let down, overall it was yummy. We should be able to get some more money out tomorrow in Nagano, which'll be nice. Afterwards, we packed our bags ready for departure tomorrow, and Adelaide managed to settle our remaining account with our package with Yakata, as well as donate the rest of the Laundry powder and handwarmers (which were dissapointing).
Tomorrow, we should be in relaxation land, with glorious view of Fuji-san! Until then, Goodnight!
Do you still fit in your ski gear?
ReplyDeleteOh you poor povo's!
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