Awesome Ski Trip

So this Friday was National Foundation Day (Kigen-setsu) in Japan. I have no idea what that holiday is all about, but it meant that we got a three day weekend! After four days sitting at a desk for training, Lauren and I were ready for something fun and outdoors. Skiing! So we asked around and found out that Matthew, a teacher from Australia, was planning a trip and he let us come along.

It was about a one hour drive to the Zao Onsen ski resort, but the drive up was beautiful.

These pictures are from the road to we drove on

Renting skis was very simple. We just went into the shop, signed a piece of paper and paid some money. They didn't ask for ID or a credit card or anything! I love that they can do that in this country and not get robbed blind.

Matthew claimed that the mountain was "Okay" but not that great, so Lauren and I weren't expecting anything too amazing. We must have terrible skiing in Pittsburgh, though, because this mountain had the best skiing we've ever experienced! It was huge. It took a half hour and three different ski lifts to get to the very top. Whoever designed the ski lift system there is brilliant. First, they give you a magnetic card that you put in your coat pocket. You just walk by a little machine at the bottom of each lift that verifies your lift ticket! Second, they have lifts with wind shields that drop down in front of you as you go up. This made the lifts the warmest part of the day instead of the coldest like they are in Pittsburgh.

The weather was gorgeous, the snow conditions were great, the trails were all really wide and a lot of fun. The best part, though, was the view. Here are some pictures of what we saw.

This is me!

The love of my life in her cute purple hat.

At the very top of the mountain, the trees were covered in snow to the point where you literally could not tell they were trees. The ski resort advertised them as snow monsters. It was kind of a creepy site. Here are some pictures of them.

SNOW MONSTERS! AHHHH!

Here you can see the trees turning into snow monsters.

At the end of the day, Lauren decided to try some Kanyaku, which is some kind of jellied root vegetable that was on sale at a street vendor next to where we rented skis. You can kind of tell from the picture how much she enjoyed it. Hooray for trying new things!