Snowboarding

On Friday, after work, I went to Iwakuni to spend the night. I did this because, Iwakuni is 2 hours closer to Hiroshima than my house, and me and some friends needed to be in Hiroshima before 7a.m. So we needed to take a 5:30 train from Iwakuni, is how it worked out. I had Mike's again (only Mexican food around), which I do whenever I go to Iwakuni. I then slept early, to get up for the long day ahead of me!

We got to Hiroshima around 6:30 and immediately headed for Starbucks, which was CLOSED! What kind of Starbucks doesn't open until 10a.m??? Japan is ridiculous sometimes. :) We got on the bus at Hiroshima station, to be driven another prefecture north, to Shimane prefecture. Here I would have my first snowboarding experience ever!!!

Today, I am putting this post up with pain all-over. But not as much pain as I anticipated. It's kind of a good pain. I can feel every muscle in my body pain. The only pain which is actually a very very bad pain is in my right arm, right up near the top, the top 5 or 6 centimeters of my arm, where it attaches. If I try to raise my hand, well, lets just say it's not pretty.

Here is video of my first trip up the ski-lift.

Here is video of some of the beginning practice, still at the bottom of the resort (not up the chair lift yet). I got better than this, I promise!

My friend Kris set this all up for us. I'd love to do it every weekend, but boy, would that be expensive! It is at least 25 dollars to get to Hiroshima. And would be 25 to get back....except when you are so exhausted that you are willing to pay double for the Shinkansen (bullet train). And when I say you, I mean of course, me. :) The food up the mountain is super expensive. Oh, and the meat of the trip: the actual snowboarding (hehe) was about 120 bucks (including 5 hour busride [roundtrip] and all the gear rental, except gloves which I had to buy).