Japan - Day 9 - David attempts ski lessons.

28th December, 2007

Our big plan for the day:  Have David take ski lessons.  We hopped the train for the 10-minute ride to the Hakuba station and waited for the van to pick us up and take us to the mountain for David's ski lessons.  I planned on skiing while he learned to ski, then I'd meet him for lunch and continue skiing the rest of the day.  Devin came with us to get us started, then she got the rest of the day to herself.  She found the local supermarket and had fun shopping.  Honestly.  This is one of her favorite things to do while traveling.  David and I rented skis the previous night to bring with us.  He got his cool pink goggles and was ready to go!  So we headed up to the mountain.  We would be at Happo-One, the home of the 1998 Winter Olympics ski events.  It's a huge mountain with too many chairlifts to count and a gondola to take skiers to the top.  David started his lesson in the "family ski area" and I was up the lift for some beginner runs to warm up the legs after not skiing for quite a few years.  I managed to plod my way down the beginner course without inflicting too much damage on myself or the mountain and actually spotted David trying to ski during his lesson.  It didn't look promising, as he crashed while I was watching and stayed down for a bit.  But I was there to ski, so up the lift I went.  I managed a few more runs down the beginner course, and tried to spot David in his lessons each time down.  He was never in site, as they were working on the other side of the lift. 

Lunchtime arrived, and I met David and his instructor.  Needless to say, the report wasn't all that great from David or the instructor.  He wasn't having much fun, and the instructor felt like David wasn't really enjoying things that much.  So David and I had lunch and talked about the morning.  I remembered my mom and dad teaching me to ski as a youngster by holding me from the back while I snow-plowed my way down the hill.  So I asked David to try this with me.  We tried a few 15-feet runs down the bunny slow and David managed to fall each time.  Heck, I even fell once just standing there watching him.  I'm sure we provided comic relief for the skiers and boarders going up the chair lift.  David wasn't having all that much fun, so we decided to call it a day.  In his mind, it didn't matter that he requested a full-day lesson, and that we had paid for this full-day lesson.  He didn't want to ski.  So I wasn't going to force him.  Devin had already gone home at this point, so there was no way to contact her and have her come back to get David, so my great day of skiing was now over.  Oh well.  We tried. 

I planned on getting a few hours of skiing in at Goryu for their night ski.  Unfortunately, it started to rain.  So my grand plans to ski the day away were completely unsuccessful.  Thankfully, we had a nice relaxing evening and a good dinner at the local Italian restaurant.  I'm a fan of what I call "cultural disconnects."  Here we were in a small skiing village in Japan, eating Italian cooked by a local couple, while The Who played on the speakers.  What a mix!  As I fell asleep, I dreamt of the rain stopping and allowing me a full day of skiing tomorrow.
 

                David and Lowell ready to ski for the day.