Nagano

Captain's log,

I got back from Nagano at about 6:30 this morning, got home just before 8:00.

The trip was amazing. We met up at about 8:30 on wednesday, and took a night bus to Nagano. This night bus was kinda cramped, and I'm glad no one sat next to me so I had more room. At one of the stops, I ran into a friend of mine, I didn't realize it was her until she screamed in surprise. At the second stop, some random broad told me I was handsome, which I thought was funny for a Japanese person to be brave enough to say.

We finally arrive around 6:40ish in the morning. We take our crap down to this big room, change, and prepare for the day of boarding - sans shower :'(

My snowboarding outfit is all black, and because of this, my tennis circle dubbed me "kokujin," which is the word for black people, much to my amusement.

The weather was perfect, snowing with grey skies. Sadly the sun came out a little bit, but it disappeared again, the weather was even better the second day. Not to mention the mountain scenery was beautiful on an epic scale.

Out of the entire group, I think I explored the mountain the most. I doubt most of them even realized there was a back side of it, which took me a while to figure out how to get to. For all of the first day, and most of the second, the majority of the group was content to stick to one or two runs. Since I have the attention span of a gnat, I quickly moved on to greener (more dangerous/fun) pastures.

The first and second days, as I mentioned, had pretty much perfect weather, there was a good supply of powder, and I only needed to get my board waxed a couple times. The third day was the worst. The sun was out, and it didn't really snow overnight, so everything was icy i.e. dangerous. Not the fun kind of dangerous either, the actual concern dangerous. I ran into a lot of issues of going to fast and not being able to make turns properly, and the irony of (moderately) gracefully coming down a black diamond run (with mouguls), only to bust ass on the bunny slopes near the lifts. Even worse was some of the snow would get kind of slushy. And if your board isn't properly waxed, it will grab and drag a bit. I foolishly ignored this twice, and fell on my head both times, hurting my neck a good deal. Thankfully, I'm indestructible.

On the evening of the second night, we had our nomikai (drinking party). This further emphasized the fact that I need to learn Japanese drinking songs, cause they were fun. I started to learn the words of some of them, but that's only because they were repeated over and over. Lots of beer and umeshu (plum wine, it's retardedly sweet, but thankfully is 10%), and some whiskey. The circle kids would basically pick someone at random and hand them drinks, giving them more if they drank it too fast, too slow, if they were cute, or really they would make up reasons just to make them drink more. They only victimized me once, which kinda sucked because the drink I had just made myself was 50% terrible whiskey. Once all the alcohol was gone, I went to a vending machine and bought some sake to finish the night. Everyone (but me of course) was red faced, which is a funny side effect when you combine Asians with alcohol. Many of them didn't remember much of the evening. But it was cute, cause they all told me how much they loved me :3

We just all wish we could communicate better :/

Other than that, the Motion City Soundtrack show was great, sadly the crowd didn't move that much this time. Oreskaband was fun, and Riddim Saunter was amazing. I really wanted to talk to MCS after the show, since I was one of two gaijin in the crowd, but Mayo had to catch her bus. Oh well. I caught one of Tony's drumsticks! So that made me happy, and you can see me in the crowd on this video (around 0:55), which also makes me feel special. I'm pretty easy to find, I'm near the front, and I'm the redhead with the red shirt.

Tomorrow is White Day, if you remember how I explained Valentine's Day a few entries back, this is the reciprocal day for dudes to give stuff back to the ladies. Since I planned v-day, Mayo gets to plan tomorrow. We're going to Kyoto! We'll see Nijo-jo, some other stuff, and buy my kimono. Sadly, I don't think sakuras are blooming yet, so it looks like I'll be going to Kyoto at least one more time after this.

I'm also really glad the intensive period is over. It was an epic pain. I look forward to meeting the new kids. I also look forward to hanging out with Taiki on tuesday, apparently some UGA kids are coming out. Party funtime.