Tokyo 2023 - Day 6

We awoke to find the weather much like it had been the day before … overcast and snowing, which isn’t really anything to complain about when you’re planning to spend the day skiing! It took us a little bit to get on the mountain by the time we worked out the logistics of collecting remaining hire equipment and finding each other. Emily had offered to show those who hadn’t skied for 10+ year the ropes and at least get them started to a point where they’d survive a lift run. The location of our lodge meant that after a short walk down the road you actually skied down to get to the base of the lift, rather than starting there.

It took a bit but everyone did eventually get down, even if there were a few spills along the way. I think Cameron may have lead the count at about five, but hey, we’ve all done that when we’re learning! Having once had to save Cameron’s life in Bali when he came out of the raft and got stuck under a couple while white-water rafting, I wondered whether there might yet be another intervention needed, but he improved rapidly and I opted to ski somewhere else!

We’ve got a couple of different group chats going on while we’re over here to try and help with the coordination of who is where and doing what, because let’s face it, when there’s this many of us and everyone is actually an adult, splitting the party is now more common than ever before.

It didn’t take long for us to inundate each other with endless lift-selfies and scenic shots as we worked our way up and down and around the mountain skiing. As confidence grew, so did the extent of the mountain that was covered and I think I’m glad I wasn’t able to see where Thomas was skiing as he has definitely been covering more than the rest of us, especially in amongst the trees!

The conditions whilst not completely perfect were actually brilliant for a first day with lots of fresh snow to help cushion the impact for anyone that didn’t stay on their feet.

For lunch we hunted down one of our favourite places from our last trip here so that we could enjoy their sensational okonomiyaki. We were very fortunate that we were all able to be accommodated even if we at somewhat in shifts.

I think my favourite moment of the afternoon (or possibly the next one as the days already begin to blur) was Belinda almost kamikazeing under a rope and onto a very steep (though powder covered and short) slope that she would never have skied down. Fortunately for her she only ended up with her skis under the rope and was able to abort that probably chaotic descent!

We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring and skiing and a little bit of it trying to find somewhere to have dinner, though that was mostly done by Sam as he at least had limited phone time on his sim card and the ability to actually converse with the locals. He wasn’t very successful for that night, but at least got some bookings made for the following two nights.

Most of us opted to eat at the lodge again, while Michael, Sam and Olivia managed to get in somewhere else. Post dinner saw us reclaim the common room, play some Qwixx and demolish some of the wonderfully low-priced whiskey we’d purchased in Tokyo!

My personal goal for Madarao was to end each day with everything intact. After all, it was only about 14 months ago that I last ended up with a little hamstring problem;

Not to mention the fact that our last trip here was where I attempted to hit 100km/hr on skis only to convert the attempt to ‘near-death-by-snowboard’ at about 95km/hr. Both had been on my mind a lot during the day and led to a lot of caution. I think my max speed for the day was about 50km/hr and I almost exclusively avoided testing my limits too much. Ski-day 1 – success.