We trooped down to the banquet hall and did more than ample justice to the extensive breakfast buffet, before returning to our room to pack and change into snow gear. Outside we found the snow had stopped overnight and it was very sunny. I was worried about Emily's eyes, so ended up shelling out for some goggles (which she only wore for five minutes, so I hope she can use them again in the future as they were 20 quid). I was glad that Nick and I had bought some for ourselves, at least, as the brightness was painful to the naked eye. Julia offered to stay with the girls while they went to Pingu ski school, so that Nick and I could join Cliff on the slopes. It was all a bit stressful as the gear rental shop was heaving and by time they had got their skis on and joined the class, they had missed the first 20 minutes.
The instructor waved us out of the way so I left Emily to practise, shuffling about on one ski first to acclimatise, and stepped into my own skis - at least I remembered how to do that. Then, feeling some trepidation, I joined the guys and we made our way to the skilift.
It was a short but pretty ride up to the top of the resort's pistes and as we rose we were treated to amazing views of the surrounding mountains.
The hotel's snow resort is not particularly high and very compact, having only 8 runs in total. The good thing is that snowboarding is not allowed, making me feel safer straight away as those guys are a bit of a liability until they are very skilled. There was a green run all the way down to the bottom but the first 100 metres or so was rather steep and also narrow. As it was a Saturday it was pretty busy, so I waited some time for a decent gap to open up so I could painstakingly snowplough my way to where it got shallower and wider. I felt very ungainly and such a novice, and my wonky knee was immediately feeling the strain, but once I got to a wide, shallow stretch I found that I could remember some of what I learned last year and made reasonable progress. With such a lot of new snow on the slopes it felt safe but I didn't fall at all anyway. There was a second steeper busy section near the bottom where I had my skis in a large V most of the way, but I did feel happy with it so far and as there was time for one more descent before the end of Emily's lesson I jumped back on the lift with Nick and Cliff. This time I took only half as long to get down. Nick was faster than me but by his own admission, not concentrating so much on style!
Julia and the girls had dropped out of the class early, but I gathered that Emily had done OK. She seemed ready to remove her skis and play in the snow though, whereas Charlize, true to character, was batting Julia off and insisting on having a go at skiing by herself, which she did pretty well for one of such tender years.
It was time to retire indoors to the huge canteen restaurant to fill up on Japanese fast food: noodles and curry rice. After lunch, the adults took it in turns to ski while the other halves played childminder. I entertained the girls in the Pingu playroom for an hour and a half with a napping Cliff while Nick hit the piste again with Julia, then he relieved me from duty and I had nearly two hours more to perfect my technique. Until I feel that I can safely stop myself at speed I shall never get the courage up to zoom down even a green run, but I was pleased with my performance. By the final descent my quad muscles were groaning and my knee felt totally twisted, but I was happy as I trudged back to the hotel to meet Nick. He had been playing with Emily at the Pingu kids snow garden, where there was even an igloo.
Julia and family had left some time earlier for town; we changed into civvies, checked in our heavy bag with the takkyubin (cheap overnight courier service) desk handily located in the hotel and then took the shuttle bus to the station, where we ate tasty soba noodles and tempura washed down with local sake then browsed the indoor market there until it was time to ride the Toki back to Tokyo. As we rushed through the evening, a massive blood red moon rose to the east, just past the full. Nick and I imbibed several cans of decent local Echigo beer and chuckled at a train magazine with the word 'Shag' emblazoned on it: an ad of some kind, I gathered.
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