Weekend

Went away boarding this weekend to a place called Ikenotaira, about 90 mins drive from Niigata. About 7 of us went. Ikenotaira is my favourite boarding place that ive been to (about 7-8 in total in Japan) Last time i came here it was brilliant blue skies and sunshine both days. This time was a different story. Saturday was ok, very cloudy, rained a bit and was warm so the snow was a chotto slushy, but was ok. did my first (and subsequently second) jump. Well, i say jump, the first one was a bit rubbish, and as kat was filming my second attempt, i thought id go for it, so i bombed down (ok, 'bomb' might be a slight mistruth, 'meandered' towards maybe...) and hit the jump and flew, seriously, i flew, i went for miles, and got really high, was brilliant, totally 'big air dude' scenario. didnt manage to land it as it was really high. proudly i went over to kat to check the footage...seriously, at best, i may have got about 3cm off the ground, well, the front of my board went pretty high, a couple of feet, but the back hardly left the ground. bum. much mirth ensued, in fact kat even emailed me this morning to tell me that she watched it again this morning and cracked up laughing. bum.

Saturday night we went to a friends house, who lives near the slope, literally about 2 mins away and cooked mexican food and had a mini party. Sunday we woke to find awful weather, raining and really really foggy. Myself and tomomi decided to go boarding anyway...everyone else wimped out. The mountain itself was amazing, the visibility was about 5-10 metres, was really bad, which meant you couldnt go fast at all as you really couldnt see a tree until it was right on you, went for a couple of hours and went back. going back in itself was weird. it was on a run that i know, but you literally couldnt see anything or anyone, was really spooky, and a bit scary at times, i had no idea where i was until i got to the bottom. was like being in heaven, all you could see was white. tomomi managed to get a little lost and took about 90 mins to get to the bottom, by which point i have to admit i was a little worried (the day before - with no fog at all - she and gareth had managed to get lost and end up on a road somewhere quite a distance away) thankfully she turned up eventually.

lunch of fried pork curry and an onsen before heading home, (as usual, listening to the ricky gervais podcasts - which make me cry with laughter)

my last snowboard trip of the year