IUJ's student society, called GSO, organizes the IUJ Ski Day every year. For ski, normally there are 2 things we have to pay for, the ski pass & the equipment rental. GSO negotiates bulk discount from the ski operator & from the equipment rental. I paid 2500 yen (1500 for ski pass + 1000 for ski rental).
On that day...
IUJ bus took us to the Hakkai-san ski resort, which is just 10 minutes away. However, Ben drove us there instead since the first bus left earlier than we thought.
Reached the ski-area, I immediately go to the equipment rental shop to get my ski equipments, buckle up & started skiing.
Start Skiing...
We take the ski lift to reach the top. The lift here takes much longer time than Urasa's ski to reach the top. The first difficult part of the ski is to get down the ski lift, since we are supposed to start skiing to get down the lift.
Actually we were quite a nuisance for other visitors, because we don't know how to get on the lift, occasionally the workers have to stop the lift to let us get on & stop again when we fell while getting off at the top of the hill. Our incompetence created such a long queue for those who wanted to get the lift up.
The Hakkai-san ski is supposedly to be easier than the ski-area in front of Urasa station, where I ski the first time. True enough, the slope was gentler and the view is much nicer. First 2 rounds, practice rounds. I fell many times over. Anyway, after 3 rounds, I stopped falling and able to ski all the way down. Completed around 20-30 rounds the whole day.
Ski is not easy. It takes at least 2 times just to get the hang of it. So many of the first time students they were just practicing whole day at the bottom of the ski resort, without taking the ski lift up.
One student, first timer, went up without knowing what to expect and took 2 hours just to get down, when normally it takes us 2 minutes to reach the bottom and have to queue to get up again.
More pictures here
Ski Day |
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