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The Bad with the Good

I'm writing this blog from memory today, because I have just realised the book I wrote my notes in is still in my dorm! Damn it! Today is a day off and I chose to spend half a day skiing, and the other half, firstly going to the convenince store and secondly in the Resort Centre on the net! So, here goes, my first non-pre-typed blog and doing it from memory without my notes! I was also going to write it in Engliahs and Japanese, but maybe from the next one.

Nagano

Our trip to Nagano was all planned out. We'd come down on our usual bus, take a bus from the Resort Centre to the train station, find the tourist information centre, find out how to get to the city office to get our alien registration, walk back to the station and get a train to Nagano. Simple right? Clearly not! We came down on our bus at 8am and realised that the bus to the train station was until 10am and the last one arrived back at the Resort Centre at 5pm. Not good. It turned out better than expected though. Instead, we were going to get a taxi, which would cost us about 1000 yen one way. Then, Yashita-san, our boss, offered to drive us. We were gobsmacked! Lots and lots of thank-yous! when we got out of the car we were like "FREEDOM!!!!!" we were away from the resort! It felt so good. Then we went to the tourist information office and when they asked us how we were getting there and we said "walking" the general manager said he'd drive us! Omigod, how nice is that?! Not only did he drive us there, we came inside with us, waited, then drove us back and dropped us out the front of the train station! Once again, lots of thank-yous. Yashita-san and the general manager saved us so much time!

We went into the station and bought our tickets. Our train wasn't until 10am, so we went for a walk. We dropped into a convenince store and at an omiyage (souvenir) shop, had o-yaki, which is like bread-ish stuff filled with vegetables. Strange, but nice. The train ride took 40 minutes and just made us sleepy because it was so hot in the carriage! When we arrived in Nagano, we went and got maps from the tourist information to find out where the temple was, as well as department stores, and of course a 100 yen shop! we took photos and stuff before we left the station (I may not have posted them yet because there's so many and it takes a long time to load, so please bear with me!) and found the post office with an international ATM. I will point out now, after a little over 3 hours in Nagano, we had not moved more than 300 metres from the station! LOL! The post office was just across the road as were the first two department stores and we had lunch in a restaurant at the station!

The first department store. Hannah and Pei were in heaven! Clothes, shoes, make-up etc etc. All that girly stuff that I tend to roll my eyes at. I told them I would meet with them in an hour and in about 5 inutes flat, I had explored the whole department store, got bored and went exploring outside! I went to the department store next door (this ended up being the second one we went in anyway because it had an outlet of Olive des Olive, a designed Pei adores!) and it was quite obscure. It had a Starbucks and and 390yen shop, which sold second hand clothes, weird, weird things including his and hers toothbrushes which were sculpted as naked bodies. No, I did not buy it! I left that one too, and started exploring the streets. We got really excited because we were in the city and there are Macca's there! I have a photo of the promotional burgers they are currently selling and I can picture many people drooling over them! Japanese Macca's is way better than Oz because they have more variety and a menu of around a dozen items for 100 yen ($1). Anyway, I eventually found a bookshop that sold not only books, but also DVD's and CD's. From there, I bought two DVD's in Japanese, Shrek and Ice Age (I've only tried Shrek and it didn't work on my laptop. Damn it!) and two books, Harry Potter 1 and 2 in Japanese! I've started reading the first one and am up to the fifth page! Woo, racing through it. After that I met with Pei and Hannah again, and I told them about the second department store and we went in there. Pei was still exploring, so Hannah and I went to Starbucks for a drink. when Pei had finished, we were hungry, so we went back to the station for lunch at restaurant that's a blend of Chinese and Japanese. Between the three of us, we ate a lot! I need to get the before and after shots from Hannah's camera!! It's quite amusing! That's when we realised how long we'd been there and barely left the station. So, we decided to go to the temple next, a) so it didn't close and b) we needed to walk off some of our lunch! It was a 2km walk up the road. we had many stops along the way. Looking in all of the little shops and stuff. By the time we got to the temple area, the omiyage were all closing. So, all we really did was take a bunch of photos and head back. We still hadn't been to the 100 yen shop yet! On our way back, we bought a soba (noodles) ice-cream. Sounds gross right? If you're picturing an ice-cream cone covered in noodles, you're wrong! From the taste, it was like they took vanilla soft serve and blended it with soba. It was still smooth and a very unique taste. I quite enjoyed, Hannah thought it was OK and Pei said it was wrong. Just wrong! Hehehe.

The trip down the street was quicked because we'd seen the shops already. We went to our final department store about 6pm. We all went our separate ways. Whilst there, I bought a few things to make my room "homier"!! These things included ornaments. a mirror (I have been longing for a mirror in my room) and some storage stuff. I managed to finally buy a bigger backpack for only 1000 yen ($10). I eventually found Hannah and we'd lost Pei! We went down to the first flor and saw all of her bags behind the counter asked where she was. Eventually we found her on the fourth floor. She never made it any higher because everything closed at 7:30pm. After that, we walked back to the station, got a drink then got on the train home. The first two carriages we went through were all full, so we went down to the last carriage, which was COMPLETELY empty. We sat down in here and eventually realised this was the reserved seating. So, to try and be able to saty there, we did the dumb foreigner act when the conductor came to check tickets and pretended we didn't understand very much Japanese. Unfortunately, they're word for reserved seating is "non-freedom seats" and is said in English! Damn it! So, we went to the space between the carriages, which was very crowded and made even more so because Pei in particular had sooooo many bags! At the next stop, we got off and went down to the very back of the train and stood there. The conductor tried to tell us we could sit further up the train and we asked (in our very bad Japanese!!) if we could stand. That was fine.

We got a taxi back to the hotel, which, that only cost us 900 yen each, meaning a taxi to the station from the Resort Centre is quite cheap. I sat with Hannah and we watched Pei unpack all of her shopping. Incash, she spent around $500 and another $300 in her credit card! Yikes!! I spent under $100! But she got some really good deals, because in one shop, which is really, really expensive, she bought 10 itmes for $300. When averaged out, that's not too bad.

Skiing- January 10th

Today, I had the day off with Pei, Satoshi-san and Toru-san. We were all skiing and because it was only my third day, I wanted to start on a beginner course, so they went up the gondola and I went up the beginner lift. As I skiied down I thought to myself "Gee, this is boring. And slow." After that, I went up to the hotel main course and went from top to bottom a) without falling over and b) in a fairly straight line! Wow!!!! S much fun! Then I went up the gondola and did the intermediate courses. I was doing really well. I met the others about half way down the hotel B course and together we cut across to the Champion side. For the whole day, I had four not-so-good falls. The first one occured on the joushi-kokutai course, which is quite steep, when I got near the bootm, I started going straight but picked up a lot of speed and the next lift was ahead and despite all my efforts, had to fall on the flat area before I fell down 20 odd metres! Didn't hurt, but would've looked really bad! the seond one came just after I had met the others. During the cut across, same problem- too fast, can't stop! This cut across joined with the joushi-kokutai course and I did the same thing going down! Whoopsy! Actually, I had a small fall on the hill to and had trouble getting my ski back on. Toru-san was trying to help and telling my I need to "kick" and I'm thinking "kick what?" (I now know I need to kick the part of the ski where the front of my boot clicks in to get the snow off the bottom so it can click in properly.)

Then, as a group, we went up the lift and then up another to the TOP of the mountain. I was on the TOP of the mountain. It's roughly 3.5km of skiing down! Phew! This top part is the hotel C course. Early on I had a fall when turning left (this damn left truning) and it hurt!!!!!!! I strained a muscle up the side of my right leg. Everyone had skiied past me so they all came up. Toru-san and Pei walked, Satoshi-san crawled! Man it was funny! Anyway, in addition to those three, I also had a ski instructor come down and he must had called a first aid guy because he came skiing UP the hill! And there's me, so embarrassed! Toru-san was saying he'll call ski patrol (they're the ones who ride the snow mobiles) and I was like "No way!" I'd rather ski down. I eventually got back up, a little sore and things got horribly annoyed and complicated after that. Everyone seemed under the impression that I was incapable of turning or stopping, so I had half a dozen people trying to teach me and give me tips and stuff and my confidence just plummeted! I was so bad. Eventually, we split up again when I told them I had done this course (Hotel B course) already and was fine. When everyone left, I was fine. I did not fall once! Left to my own devices, I did a lot better.

In the midde of one of the slopes a Japanese guy stopped his skiing, looked up at me and asked if I was from Australia!! I said yes and he kept talking but I couldn't hear, so I skiied down. I assumed he was staff, because how else would he know where I was from. As it turned out, he was just a customer and didn't even realise I worked there! I still don't know exactly how he guessed I was Australian. he told me he ahd been to Australia though. *shrugs* Not sure. Anyway, chatted to him for about 15 minutes and then kept going down another 30 metres before I realised I took the wrong fork! I had to take my skis off and walk back up and across!

After skiing I went back to my dorm and slept for an hour before dinner! I was that tired.

Update: James' Arm

James has had his operation and has been granted permission to stay here. He has a new job. He sits in a little box checking that people have the right ticket! Exciting stuff. At least when he's bored, he can do stuff. he studies, because out of ll of us, he has the least Japanese study.

Frustrations

Ok, here's the bad stuff. All of my frustrations came out in a not-so-good way on Sunday night, Matt's birthday. I'll get to that in a second but here's what's been bothering me:

Dorm Location
This is getting to all three of us. We hate been so isolated up in our dorm at night, especially when the boys have the freedom to do whatever they want! Over the long weekend, a guy called Morgan came to the resort, he had worked here last year through BooBooSki. he told us that last year the girls stayed in a hotel across the road and the boys were in the same place as they are now. But, the guys spent nearly every night in the girls' dorm, which is a big no-no in Japan! They got dobbed in and Stuart from BooBooSki came down and ripped into them. That is certainly another possible reason for us being so separated. Though despite that incident, the girls were moved into the same dorm as the guys two weeks later. =S I don't know how much I trust of what Morgan says though. He doens't strike me as a trustworthy person and some pretty dirty rumours reached my ears.

Lonliness
Being in a room by myself SUCKS! One expectation I had coming here was that I would be sharing a room, whether with a Japanese or English speaker. This has hit me harder than I thought. I go to Pei and Hannah's room every now and then, but still feel a bit like an intruder. So, the nights I don't visit them, I'm stuck in my room, usualy with not much to do. Although my TV now works, nothing interesting is on before 9pm and a lot of the time boredom has sent me to sleep! (My heater is also working fine now!)

Work
Work, it seems, is only interesting on weekends, purely because that's that only time we get busy! So, there's boredom here too but I have bigger problems. the whole point of this trip is to improve my Japanese speaking or else I am going to fail Japanese at uni this year. Unfortunately, when the opportunity for speaking comes up, someone always butts in. If it's a customer, Yuta-san, Satoshi-san or Shizuka-san start talking before I can get a word in and I stand there looking like an incompetent idiot. Why don't I tell them to butt out? Because that has already blown up in my face once. Read the next problem for details. In addition to that, Yuta-san and Shizuka-san seem to be on a power trip. They hardly ever do any cleaning, particularly the toilets or vacuuming. Hannah and I are both getting annoyed by this. Yuta-san told us that one of us needs to do the bins and the other the toilets. I asked about Shizuka-san and he said "no"! %^*(&%#$^**%$!!!!!!! Grrrr.

Satoshi-san
We'll I managed to find I person I really clash with even though I certainly didn't expect to. On the first day, he said to me if I ever have a problem I should talk about it. Well, there are really good p-words to describe Satoshi-san. Patriarchal..........petulent..........patronising............ Early on, he kept trying to do everything! If I was washing dishes, he'd come along, stop me and strat doing it himself. Eventually, I spoke to him about it and told him it annoys me... he has not had a casual converstaion with me since. It's all business. Right, well, that went well!

Matt's Birthday

Hannah, Pei and I planned to pick up Matt's cake after work, drop it off at the bar, have dinner then go back. that was our plan from the start. By the end of the work day, we were all very grumpy. Firstly, we'd worked overtime, so we were late picking up the cake. I was annoyed at Shizuka-san (because everything has to be her way! I was ding the first beer for the morning, and we need to let in run into a bowl until it becomes clear and I was in the middle of doing it and she turned the tap off, took the bowl and said that is was fine. It wasn't, the cup was three quarters full of foam! So, she made me clean up while she did for me. Grrr!), Hannah was annoyed at Yuta-san and Pei was really upset that she'd been given holidays the same day as Satoshi-san except Valentine's Day, where we ALL have the day off bar her and no one would swap with her. So, walking to the convenince store to pick up the cake we were all in a huff when Satoshi-san rings. He told us not to just dropped the cake off and leave because that's rude. So, we're like fine, whatever, and we went straight to dinner. Dinner was great! I had croquet curry rice, Pei had yakiniki (fried beef) and Hannah had ramen (noodles). At 7pm, we got another call from Satoshi-san saying why aren't you here? We paid and left and went to the bar.

When we got to the bar, Satoshi-san told US to apologise for bieng late because HE had made the booking for 6pm and no one was there. The guys didn't get there until 6:30pm either and we, who didn't finish work until 5:50pm, had to get the cake and had not yet had dinner had to be there at 6pm!! What the hell?? Pai was upset at the way he was speaking and I was the unfortunate one who asked him why we had to be there at 6pm. He swore at me and said that's what was supposed to happen. We were fuming. Pei was getting more and more upset, so we went outside for a breather. We went back in and things had settled until Satoshi-san, very unnecessarily swore at me again, and I just lost it. I got my jacket and left. i walked to the Resort Centre and back again, by which time all of my frustrations had built up so much that I didn't want to stay so I went back, got my bag, Satoshi-san tried to apologise but I did not want to hear, particluarly because I know it would've been Pei who told him to do it, and left. To get back to my dorm from the bar is about a 3km walk, which at night, I KNOW, I KNOW, is not the safest thing in the world. But I did it anyway. It took a surprisingly short time though. About 40 minutes, which, given that the weekend had been a blizzard and still was on the mountain, was quite fast.

The next day was very tense. I just wasn't speaking and Hannah was trying to mediate with Satshi-san about the confusion of the booking and to explain why Pei was so upset with him.

So, that's my issues. Unfortunately, I think I'm stuck. I honestly don't know how to improve anything. Particularly my living arrangements. As for the people, I'm still very unwilling to "talk" about it.

Skiing; January 15th

To end on a happier note, I spent this morning skiing. It was fantastic! I had one fall early on and only because my left foot wouldn't follow the rest of my body when I was turning right and I tumbled and thumped the back of my head. That hurt a little. Other than that, the rest of the skiing was excellent. Hardly any people around and I have now done all of the intermediate courses. My zigzags are becoming narrower and once you get into a rhythm, it's so satisfying! So, on my next day off, January 21st, I'm set to tackle an advanced course.

I only skiied in the morning. After that I planned to walk down, but managed to score a lift with my ski instructor, which gave me further rpoof that I talk so much better on my own! I made a quick trip to the convenience store and spent the rest of the afternoon on the net!