Konnichiwa

The End of Ski Season

Ski season has ended.  We made it to the mountains 3 times this Feb/March.  

The first time we went, I spent hours packing.  The second time we went, I spent about an hour packing. The third time we went, I spent only a couple of minutes.  Call me seasoned. So, this is what it feels like to have a second/weekend home?  It can be quite tiring.  As Tomo and I have long hours at work, we tend to leave our house no earlier than 11pm on Friday nights and do the drive to Yuzawa.  It should take only 2 hours but Feb/March is when there are road works everywhere as the various cities try to use up all the government budget before the financial year end (which is March 31 in Japan).  So the traffic jams throwin another hour, at least. We sleep in on Sat morning, do a lazy brunch and hit the mountains only at about 1pm. We ski, eat, sleep, eat, ski, eat, ski... and then leave Yuzawa at about 10pm on Sunday night to get back to Tokyo/Yokohama.  Only to be up again at 7 to get ready for the school/work day.

Much as I enjoyed Yuzawa, I am glad ski season is over.  I can now do proper sleep ins on Saturdays and Sundays!  I am exhausted.  Work has been crazy this Feb/March and many weekends found me hunched over my computer or attending meetings.  In fact, our 3rd trip to Yuzawa was not confirmed until 10pm on a Friday night.  At 6pm that day, I managed to confirm that I was OK work-wise to leave the city.  Tomo was still not sure until he called home at 10pm to say that he is OK too, pack up and we will go!  We were all so excited, esp since we had to cancel a trip the prior weekend, which was a long weekend, due to a meeting Tomo had on a SUNDAY! (I will save my rants on the Japanese disregard for family time on weekends in another long, long, long post).

As for the boys, they love skiing.  We can't tear them away from the mountains! When the ski-lifts for the day pass end, Kai refuses to leave and makes Tomo push him up the mountain so that he can continue skiing!!! Taiga too, is like the Energizer bunny on the ski hills.  He takes quite a few tumbles as his legs are still not strong yet, but that does not deter his spirit. At one stage, he had a 1 on 1 class with his instructor for 2 hours.  After the class, the instructor mentioned that he should be exhausted by now and would probably want to sleep soon. Nah, he made Tomo push him up the mountains too and skied for another 3 hours.  Poor Tomo, he has to do the midnight drives and push the kids up the mountains. But then again, having the kids start skiing now is his idea.

Since the kids loved it, we bought them ski clothes after the 1st weekend.  Before the next ski season, we will probably buy them their own set of skis and ski boots.  It works out much cheaper than renting. The first weekend we were there, we easily spent 50,000 yen just on renting the clothes/skis/boots, paying for 3 ski classes for each boy and ski lift passes. Come next ski season, we will not be renting anything, Taiga will probably go back for some more classes (as he is so young - he was not even 4 when the ski season ended!) but Kai is definitely over classes. He is begging out of it.  Instead, he wants "Daddy School". The apple does not fall far from the tree - speed is king. In the proper ski school, where there are a few kids to 1 teacher usually, the kids have to ski slowly and ski for only 10 meters before having to stop and wait for the next kid to ski.  At Daddy School, he gets to ski non-stop all the way from the moment he gets off the ski lift, which means he can go fast, fast, fast! Yes, speaking of that, I will definitely have to buy him a safety helmet too.

Whilst they are skiing, I am enjoying a cappucino in a lovely, warm cafe, followed by waffles topped with caramel ice-cream fresh from a nearby farm.  All the whilst, playing around my Mac with the free wi-fi and listening to music with my noise-cancelling Bose headphones.  That is why I don't object too much when they want to go skiing when I rather stay home and sleep. Oh, I have been productive.  I have been watching the Apple video tutorials on how to make/edit home movies.  I have not mastered it yet, but the videos attached are my first efforts.  You can hear me snapping at Taiga, Taiga crying, strong wind blowing etc - I have yet to learn to mute that. Enjoy!

In this video, Taiga is so adorable as he takes his spills  - and what is Kai doing?

Surfing in Ski Country

Surfing the internet, that is. I am sitting in the Edleweiss Cafe of Prince Hotel in Niigata,Naeba as I write this post. Isn't WiFi amazing? Better when it is free, as it is now.

Tomo is out being challenged by the ski hills.  He is an advance skier.  He does black slopes.  

Prince Hotel has a ski school for kids, named Miffy - after the famed character.  Kai and Taiga are now in school.  Kai is actually on skis. He even went up a ski lift today! He is doing pretty well and is very enthusiastic.  He comes down the bunny slopes nicely but can't stop.  Stopping is tough.  Reminds me of the first time I was on skis.  Can't stop too. Just went from right to left to right, instead of stopping.

Taiga is too young to go on skis although I think we will try to convince the Miffy school otherwise next month. Kids can go on skis only from 4 yrs and Taiga's b'day 4th b'day is early April.  They will not let us this time, but when he is 1 month short next month, I think we will try a little harder to convince them. Taiga's class spends 1 hour indoors playing with toy cars and 1 hour outdoors playing with the snow. Including tobaggon rides. For whatever he is doing, it is costing me an arm and a leg which is a little hard to justify. So you could say I am buying myself some quiet time here!

Miffy school has a great reputation.  Also, I was very impressed when we came for a look-see here last year.  This was soon after the Natasha Richardson incident.  All the ski schools we looked at did not care or stress head gear at all.  Miffy did.  So much that in the aftermath of the accident, they were encouraging skiiers to use helmets and did free rentals of ski helmets.  Great marketing?  Whatever.  I am sold.

The boys did 1 class yesterday and are doing 2 classes today. We are planning to be back another 2 weekends in March to round off this ski season.

It snowed quite a bit from late afternoon yesterday till this morning.  But since this morning, it has been sunny.

As the boys are skiing, I have been busy doing my own stuff.  Like getting to know more about my Mac. I am not fully utilising all the functions on my Mac and have spent hours watching the video tutorials on the Apple site. I have been catching up reading my Time magazines. Ever since having Kai and Taiga, my subscription issues tend to lie around unopened.  I brought along a parenting book I bought a couple of weeks ago - Einstein Never Used Flash Cards.  I like the book.  But watching those tutorials have taken up a lot of my time and I am not sure whether I can get to reading the book before we head back to Tokyo tonight. Anyway, we will probably be back here in 2 weeks time, and that book is probably coming again too.

May post some shots/video footage later.