Real NorNorCal

South Lake Tahoe :)

I still haven't been able to wrap my mind around the fact that it's 2013. It's kind of like.... what. What do you mean it's already 2013. Oh crap, I totally just wrote 2012. Let me add a little loop to the bottom to make it 2013.... just curve the end around a little bit and FIXED.

I'm going to be doing that for months. Sigh.

Winter break was too short. Way way way too short. Despite it being like, third week into the quarter and over halfway through January, I'm still like "what do you mean, winter break finished?" Sigh.

It probably felt like that because my family was all over the state. I went up with my dad and brother to Tahoe, picked up my grandparents and sister from Reno and went skiing. Lots of fun, but I fell so many times. So. Many. Times. We skiied the whole time at Sierra-at-Tahoe, close to South Lake Tahoe. My brother and I went three times and oh man. Skiing uses a completely different set of muscles. I hurt so much after the first day, despite only getting four runs in, because skiing is like doing a squat the entire time you have your boots on since you're generally unable to stand up straight. Also I haven't skiied in over three, four years. ...and I'm out of shape.

It was absolutely beautiful though the first three days we were there. Blue skies, sunny, fresh snow. Got a bit cold, but with enough layers that wasn't much of a problem. The weird thing is that when I was in Japan - with equally cold weather - I wore waaaaay more clothes and had layers upon layers upon layers, even when I was riding my bike and walking to work. So "but you're constantly moving and will be warm that way" wasn't really like, a thing, especially since whenever you ride on the ski lift, you're sitting still for a good while anyways.

My brother probably wasn't the right person to get back into skiing with. He's the kind of person that's like "so what, you fall down, you get back up. You're going to fall down, so whatever, take risks" kind of dude. Which is cool. I wish I was like that sometimes. But I'm not. Not when it comes to things that are painful like falling down mountains (or falling in general). That's kind of why I never really wanted to learn how to snowboard, and why I walk so freaking slow on ice and snow. I don't want to fall. It's not afraid so much as overly cautious.

Maybe a little bit afraid too.

The "warm up run" my brother allowed me to do wasn't the nice easy bunny slope I wanted to remember how to ski on. Oh no. We went to the second highest ski lift and took the beginner green runs the whole way down. About half way down, the trail splits from the "EZ way down" course, Sugar and Spice, to this ridiculously annoying, full of turns run appropriately called Corkscrew. I can't turn for crap. D:  My approach to that run was "come to an almost complete stop and then kind of very slowly turn" that occasionally turned into "fall down so you don't fall off the mountain, then get back up and turn" turn.

SNOW DINO

The whole "fall down and then turn yourself manually" turn is something I've gotten quite good at. When my sister finally joined us on the slopes two days later (my brother and I took a day off to uh, recuperate. I made this super rad snow dinosaur, since making a full blown snowman seemed like way too much cold at that point since I was barefoot lol.) we - still at Sierra - decided after my sister had gone a few runs to go "exploring" some of the other runs since my brother was getting bored of Sugar'n'Spice and Corkscrew. He managed to get me to go down a blue medium slope, since it wasn't *too* terribly steep, so I figured, why not try this other one. It was called "Upper Sleighride" and we figured, "how hard could it be?"

I think I was stuck at the top of the incline for a good 15-20 minutes. We came out of this rather pleasant area with some hills, and then BAM it was like HELLO SHARP STEEP HILL. Like those kind where when you're at the top and you look out and you can't actually see the rest of the run. There was another section across the way that looked vaguely less steep (but still pretty steep) so after running into some ski patrol guys who offered the solution of waiting for 45 minutes until the slopes were closed and the run clear, I figured that perhaps this way would be an alright way to go down.

It generally involved falling every time I tried to turn on my right foot (so turn... left?). Personally, I think I would have preferred to have a snowboard at that point, since at least with a snowboard, you can turn the board horizontally and kind of feather your way down; at no point is your board pointing straight down the mountain. You can also face down the mountain and kind of slowly make your way down (I watched another woman do that. She told me that normally that run wasn't as steep, but for some reason that day it was extra steep. Hooray). Skis on the other hand, when you turn, at some point in time, your skis are pointing directly down the mountain. It's fine if you can turn them in time (though you still pick up speed I think) but I generally... can't, which leads to a few terrifying seconds of OHMYGODPICKINGUPSPEEDAHHHCAN'TSLOWDOWN in the case of my right turns, and OHMYGODPICKINGUPSPEEDAHHHHHCAN'TGETFOOTALIGNEDAHHFALLING falls on left turns. My brother claims that skis are easier, and to some extent, yes. But for steep slopes, I would have to disagree, especially since my weak point (or well, one of many) is having control in going down steep parts. Barreling down is kind of dangerous, not just for yourself but for others as well. With skis, sure, you can take up the entire run to criss cross your way down, but at some point in time (every time you turn really) your skis need to point down, and you pick up some speed. There are a bunch of other points too but yeah... for me this is a big one. I've always heard that skiing is easy to learn, hard to master, while snowboarding is the opposite; hard to learn, (relative to skiing) easy to master (as easy mastering things go anyways, which is never simply "easy").

Not-so-great skiing conditions

Our last day of skiing was right as the winter storm was hitting Tahoe (we drove out in the middle of the winter storm. Smart...). So while the day started out alright, it quickly was reduced to a super crappy visibility with a lot of snow and wind. So much wind. But I mean seriously, how are you supposed to be able to ski and like, not hit people/trees/know which way to turn for runs/not fall off the mountain when your visibility looks like a huge patch of white?



I spent some more quality time contemplating how cold I was and how to get down the mountain during that run. I had better visibility diving in San Diego (which has really really bad visibility because of all the sand that gets kicked up). I think I contemplated taking off my skis at one point, since I did not want to miss a turn and end up tumbling down the mountain... but I don't really remember how I got down. Lots of "AHHHHHHHHHH" and probably a significant amount of swearing and praying. Also, lots of going really really snow. Good control work I guess?  My brother said he almost was going to ask them to send a search crew for me, it took so long.   (._.);  I felt kinda bad too, since both my siblings were waiting for me at the bottom for like... a while.


Hooray, sibling bonding. After that though, I think they did one more run while I sat in the lodge, since I decided that I liked living and disliked stress. They did agree though, that we were ending the day early due to the ridiculous amount of snow and wind. I did discover at least, that Sierra actually has really good mochas (and chili cheese fries).

Actually, I'm going up again next weekend with a bunch of people from my housing area. Stanford really seems to like planning ski trips (which I guess makes sense since we're pretty close...ish...) but I swear, most of the mailing lists I'm on are like "SKI TRIP" or I keep seeing things for "DORM SKI TRIP" and I'm just like... dang. We didn't have anything like that at UCSD.

...then again, we didn't have PE classes like Polo and Equestrian (though, I think we had rec classes for surfing).

Okayama Adventures

Normally, I don't get to go to places that you need a car to get to (since that means relying on the kindness and time of the people around me who do have them). Today though, I went with one of my teachers (whom I'm losing in the spring due to the Great Teacher Shuffle, sadface) to an onsen in the eastern part of Japan called Notoro Onsen Tenkuu no yu 「のとろ温泉天空の湯」って。It's up in the mountains - the highest onsen in Okayama, according to my teacher. It had three baths for the women: two indoors and one huge outdoor bath that had a super amazing view of the mountains.

Oh yeah, and it was snowing. HECK YES. So we had the view of the mountains, trees covered with snow, and it was outside. :) The only thing that wasn't super awesome was the little worm thing I found on my teacher's arm from the wood haha. That was kinda gross. I blame it on the warm weather (despite the fact that it's getting colder now for some reason!).

I love onsen though. We ate lunch, stopped by a 「道の駅」"Michi no Eki" or "road's station" that sold a bunch of kinda rural things haha. I bought strawberries and veggies and zucchini seeds for really cheap. I was thinking of growing zucchini again (or trying to at least haha). Who knows how that'll go...

The last place we visited (before the supermarket anyways) was one of the three sets of caves in Okayama. I forgot the name. But there are two famous caves in Niimi City: Ikura-do and Maki-do. Ikura-do is accessible via train, while you must drive to maki-do.

We went to a different one. It was called 「備中鐘乳穴」（びっちゅうかなちあな）"Bicchu Kanachiana." It was really really pretty inside, and kind of hidden in the middle of the mountains. Like seriously, we had to drive up the mountain and then walk down to the cave. We were walking and suddenly, it was like WOAH there's a huge crack in the earth WOAH cave. I was so busy looking down (trying not to slip) that I didn't notice the entrance until really late and was so startled I nearly fell. XD


Inside was simply amazing. It's so crazy to think that inside these mountains are caves like this (I was warned not to go exploring in this area, since there were more of these kinds of hidden caves here). To me, seeing these caves is like looking at those amethyst rocks - the ones that look plain on the outside, but on the inside is just, woah. SPIKY. And beautiful.


My teacher was really surprised that I liked these kinds of things though. She told me that ALTs who like caves are kind of rare, and I think was really amused that I was constantly like "WOAH NATURE" and "OMG BEAUTIFUL" to everything along our drive to and from the onsen and inside the caves haha. 

I'm working on the post for the Philippines, but it's kinda long haha. Oops. Maybe sometime this week (I hope!). Also sometime I need to post about 大味 since I think it's an absolutely fascinating topic.


Also, facebook reminded me that today marks the one year anniversary for the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami disaster. I've been so impressed and so touched by the compassion, the hope, the whole... feeling of the entire country banding together to help out this one area. That area is still in need of help, make no mistake. It's been a long year (or short year) and there are still people who have no jobs, no livelihoods, who are still missing... 


Stay strong Japan (and everywhere that has been affected by large scale earthquakes, tsunamis, and disasters).

Sapporo

Day 1: Sapporo

Sunday, 6 February 2011: 6:00am

This is the time that we left for the airport. Actually, I think we left some time before this, since we got to the airport before 6 am, since it was still closed when we got there. That was... fun. But, that being said, I'd rather be there really really early than really close to being late.

So our flight from Kobe left sometime around 8 am and got in sometime around noon. Despite California being a little bit larger than Japan, strangely enough, it still took longer to get from Kobe to Hokkaido than it does to get from San Diego to San Francisco. To be fair, it also takes longer by car I believe, but who knows if that's because of terrain or speed limit or what.

But either way, we reached Sapporo safe and sound, and set off on a train to our hostel. And reach... SNOWPOCALYPSE. Seriously. So. Much. Snow.

I will summarize the rest of our day in a few sentences.

1. The only kind of snow that is awesome is powder; everything else sucks.

2. Especially when you have to walk on it and you keep slipping despite there being tread on your boots.

3. Finding food to eat with vegetarians in Japan is kind of tiresome after a bit, bless their hearts.

4. Snow can be built into huge, giant things of awesome.

We found our way, after dropping off our stuff and checking in to our hostel, to where the yuki matsuri, or snow festival, had been set up. Of course, I forgot my camera in my backpack at the hostel (I brought my purse instead). Wow. Stupid me. Stupid stupid stupid. I took pictures on my phone instead. Eventually those will get uploaded. Eventually.

It was cool though, because there weren't as many people at the festival since it didn't officially start until Monday. (Oh man, the difference between the two days was AMAZING. There were SO MANY PEOPLE. O_O )

Wooooooooow snow sculptures are amazing. I kind of wish I lived in a place with more snow so that I could try doing this. Because those things were absolutely amazing. There were sculptures of all different sizes, though the smallest ones were around person size (mounted on a large block) and the large ones were.... large. Huge. Building size. There was one of the Lion King, which was pretty freaking awesome. I practically was jumping with joy. IT WAS SO AWESOME. It was for the Lion King musical, which is currently showing in Japan (I really want to see it).

I could go on and on and on and on about how amazing the snow festival was, but it's getting late and it's already ten past eight. I haven't eaten yet. Again. Oops. That's the bad thing about winter; I tend to get sucked into the warmth that is my kotatsu and then I don't move for a long time and neglect everything else. Sigh.

Since we had gotten up so early, we ended up retiring back to our hostel a little earlier than we would have normally. We were so tired, but we still managed to find the energy to play Bang! (a western, mafia style cowboy card game I brought with me). Also met some of the other people in the hostel, including a Brit dude and an Australian dude who happened to be sharing our dorm style room with us.

Hooray for new friends!