全部白-ぜんぶしろ-zenbu shiro-all white

Monday was Independence Day in Japan and both students and teachers got to enjoy the rare day off from school responsibilities. Naturally the young teachers at my school decided to spend their precious Monday off hanging out together. Their destination was Ski-Jam. Ski-Jam is the largest ski/snowboarding resort on the west coast of Japan, and it happens to be in Fukui about an hour and half drive away from my apartment.

My teachers were kind enough to invite me to go with them and I LOVE hanging out with these teachers. However, I was super hesitant to go because I have NEVER in my life been skiing or snowboarding. I was terrified of the potential pain and embarrassment of looking like a foolish Texas novice in the snow. Especially since my supervisor, the coworker I'm closest with at my school, wasn't going. But, I knew that I wanted to learn to snowboard and having some nihonjin to help me navigate ski-jam for the first time was probably a good idea. Also, most of the teachers going weren't English teachers so it was a good chance to practice my Japanese.

Not wanting to feel completely alone and foreign I asked the teachers If I could bring a friend. They gracefully said it was OK so I brought my friend Sophie with us for company and support. (Thanks Sophie!)

As we were driving up the mountain I was getting more and more nervous. Literally everything was coated in white snow and I felt like a fish out of water in a million different ways. What had I gotten myself into? but I also felt excitement at trying something new that I had always wanted to do.

We got to ski-jam and my teachers helped Sophie and I rent the gear that we needed and put our stuff into lockers. Its always nice to have Japanese people around to help you fill out forms and get everything sorted. It takes twice as long when I struggle through with my caveman japanese!
On our way out to the mountain we ran into a couple groups of our students. The teachers weren't the only ones enjoying the day off in the snow! The whole soccer club and a group of ichi-nensei girls were there as well.

One of my teachers, Wakamatsu-sensei, is super motivated to speak to me in English and kindly volunteered to be my snowboarding coach for the day! She did such a great job teaching me in English and simple Japanese so that I could understand. I found snowboarding difficult, but not as difficult as I expected it to be. I am pretty familiar with wake boarding and found some similarities that worked in my favor and some key differences that made adjusting to snowboarding extremely difficult.

The way you turn and lean on your board is exactly the same and having your feet strapped into a board probably felt more natural to me than other beginners. The biggest difference is where you place your weight on the board. In wake boarding you are leaning back and letting the boat pull you by keeping your weight on your back foot. In snowboarding, however, you put more of your weight on your front foot. I was constantly having to force myself to lean forward or I would end up on my backside.

After a whole day snowboarding I feel comfortable saying that I can fall down the mountain at an effective speed and with more practice I think I will be able to manage snowboarding down the mountain soon. My whole body aches. I can honestly say that I was more sore the day after snowboarding than I was the day after I climbed Fuji. But it hasn't deterred me! I'm going to try and go again this weekend.

The group. I really love this picture!

This is a video I took on the ski lift. The people are all teachers from my school the teacher to my left is Wakamatsu sensei my snowboarding sensei! I love these teachers so much!