Hokkaido: Day 5

[Wednesday Feb 9th]

Today started out awesome, because I helped Kristin make pancakes. So we had an awesome breakfast, and then headed out to the Chocolate factory in the outskirts of Sapporo. We met up with Mike and Martin (one of Mike's friends from Kyoto) and had a fun afternoon playing around at the museum and looking at all the exhibits. There was a kind of creepy, kind of awesome, section on old toys; but made it creepy was that they had really weird sound effect going off when you passed certain toys.

Eventually we realized we had to leave if we wanted to go skiing. So we rushed to the train station and head back to Sapporo train station. There we bought the ski package and train tickets and then head up to the train platform.... and proceeded to get on the wrong train. But it was okay, because the conductor at the station told us how to get to the correct location, and we had left early so we still had plenty of time.

At the Ski Mountain (half of the hill was closed because it was night skiing) we wandered around for a few minutes trying to figure out where the rental section. once we realized there was a shuttle bus to the rental shop (which was not a far walk away) we decided to be lazy and take the shuttle. We rented our skiis, boots, and poles without a hitch and took the shuttle back to the bottom of the hill.

When we got out of the shuttle, Martin and I needed to learn/relearn how to ski. Martin had never Skied before, and the last time I did it was like 6 years prior, so we were both pretty awful. Mike took it upon himself to teach us how to do the basics. He taught us how to climb (we were very bad at this) and then our pie slices. Eventually we kind of got it, so we went up the lift and took it slowly going down the mountain. Mike skied with me, and Kristin skied with Martin. Mike was really nice and but my 3rd time going down I was getting pretty decent. We went down another hill on out 4th time down, and on the 5th Mike helped Martin. I started going faster and faster down the hills, it was super fun. I went down the second hill a couple of times, and it was super nifty because there were colorful lights on that side, so I liked skiing over there.

Towards the end of our skiing time, I followed Kristin down, she goes very fast, and.... I had my first fall since my first run down the mountain. However this one was pretty awful, I tripped (I think I hit a pile of loose snow and some ice with one of my skis and couldn't hold myself up). I fell down, but I hit the ground with the back of my head first. It was kind of awful, I remember I looked up, and my hair was all over my face. I shifted my legs so the the skis were parallel to each other, and then looked up the mountain to see where my hat had come off, it was a little bit above me, so I knew I hadn't slid that far, but I couldn't reach it from the position I was at. However, a very nice snowboarder (turns out she was from the rental shop) stopped and picked up my glasses ( which I had not even noticed had come off) and my hat. She then went down the hill and I took it slowly down and called it a night.

I don't think I am seriously injured, it might have been a light concussion, but even though it is a bit over 12hrs after the event I still have a bit of a headache, and my neck is super stiff. :( Ah well, if I still feel awful in a couple hours I'll go to the hospital.

After we returned all our items, we went back to Sapporo and had dinner (after searching for a while for an open restaurant) at an izakaya , minus the alcohol. The food was warm and yummy, and I enjoyed eating. Then Kristin and I went back to our hostel on the second to last train (12:05am).

All in all? A long, fun (and exciting) day.