purple daruman...

now, i am proud to say... i am not a ski-virgin anymore ;) hah! i finally, finally [cannot stress it enough] conquered my fear of getting hit by ski blades and messing up the immaculately white snow with my blood... ummm ok, at least for a little while there.

after much shoving and the fear of eating lunch at my desk for a week [minimum!] just because i cannot relate to lunch conversations [oh, how i hate being left out on anything hehe], i gave in and had my name listed on this "must-do" daw. believe me, i got wide-eyed-cant-believe-you're-such-a-coward-bordering-on-pity looks from people who knew that i have been passing up on this chance for quite a while. so, just to get this over and done with, i gave in to peer pressure, replied yes to the coord, gave my stats and paid the fees. oh yeah peer pressure's also to blame for buying all those ski stuff i should have just rented.:) i just figured if i get hit by blades anyway might as well i be in-style...new gloves, goggles and new warmers...[grrrr it was later ruined by an ill-fitting, vintage, rented ski suit].

because it was a 3-day weekend, we left tokyo for nagano thursday night and returned sunday morning. we were about 13 in a throng of millions of pinoys...no kidding! i've never seen this big gathering of kababayans after my sunday 'stints' are over. :)

3 stopovers, 1 american hotdog and hours of sleep later, i had my first walk or should i say crawl on snow. that time i just missed bin the most. :) had he been there with me, he'd be literally pushing me up. [ummm bin, i could hear a sigh of relief from here, will you be discreet please... :D]

after dropping our things at the inn and convincing the staff there to give me something that resembles a ski suit [looking like an ube mascot suggests i failed miserably on this], we started the show.

since we had "experts" [naks!] in the group, we didn't "enroll" in the ski lesson provided by the inn. aside from the money we'd be saving for that, it's a whole lot better to have someone you know to teach you. case in point, i couldn't imagine harassing the nihonjin senseis to not let go of me until i am comfortably settled. hehehe. i know the "experts" are this short '-' to wringing my neck. the only clincher could be that they know i have charming personality anyway sans the ski. ;)

it took me just about 30 minutes to learn how to move on snow... which really surprised me. [to emphasize, i dont, cant and wont bike.] "ooohhh i am sooo good. life's a bliss. i'm just born to do this, baby!"... or so i thought.

26 years devoid of any physical activity took an abrupt toll on me. i gave up almost instantly as i'd learned the v's and brakes and finding my balance. in fairness, i really did not have any bad fall and no shedding of my precious blood happened .i just felt that my knees were too old to endure such weight. as the saying goes 'my mind is willing, but my sexy body is weak'. i was practically paraphlegic all-day after a half-day of gliding.

but whatever's the case, i pretty much had a great time. me and friends got to build a snowman aka igloo aka pyramid of egypt aka giant ebs aka ice cream. whaddahel am i talking about? simply put 'the form is in the eye of the beholder'. :)

i also did some soul searching, most of the time... asleep. got to continue my reading, learned one nihonggo word, took community baths again and contemplated on really buying this brand of camera and an ipod. see, very productive trip nevertheless.

that experience's just enough to last me a lifetime [read: nobody can make me join one again! hehe]
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thanks to my senseis... rumel, jeff and neil! you guys are really gooood. it was just me. ;)