All dressed up and nowhere to ski

Bonus buffet breakfast with the hotel booking which I didn't remember requesting!

We asked the front reception man about what people do in the snow when it is raining and not a fine sunny day. His suggestion was that no-one skis and that it is icy. He also told us that Happo One lower runs were closed, and better to go to Hakuba47 Ski Resort as it was better for beginners, so that's what we did. Dressed in our snow pants and jacket and gloves, we left skis, poles, helmets and goggles at the hotel and wandered down the street to wait for the free shuttle bus. Luckily some other Australians there set us on the right path of which bus to get on, and in no time we were at Hakuba47, heading for the ski school building.

No luck for lessons today, and in fact no group lessons tomorrow either, but for $250 we could get a two hour private lesson tomorrow morning, so in desperation I said yes (even though it is supposed to be raining tomorrow too). Signed up, and as we were sitting down going through the ski lift advice the lady had just given me, Eric walked over and introduced himself as our ski instructor tomorrow. He was waiting for someone to turn up for a lesson and was not expecting her as she didn't show up the day before either, so he stayed and chatted to us for about 30 minutes or so. A 69 year old Italian from Verona who was married to the Japanese lady I had just signed up with, and they split their time between Hakuba in the winter, Verona, Singapore where he lived for 10 years and Phuket, a true geo-arbitrager. He was a civil engineer, and obviously very well travelled. He grabbed some skis and gave us a few ski instructions ready for tomorrow. If two hours proves to not be enough tomorrow I think we will just buy another two hours. There is a slim possibility we might be on a beginner run by tomorrow afternoon. Erik said last year at Hakuba was a bummer snow season with a large December dump, this year not much snow and it is a problem world wide. To prove his point he hurried off to find his phone to show us dismal pictures of snowless ski areas in Austria.

We then spent three hours sitting in the big-windowed restaurant watching people come down the red run, the people standing in the rain at ski school group instruction just in front of us, and generally watching the world go by. Kate and Craig did some mini sketching and painting. This included a lady who decided to walk down the mountain sideways, dressed in a very nicely colour coordinated ski outfit whilst the boyfriend walked down beside her trying to cajole her whilst carrying her skis. A dude who lost his glove near the top bit we could see, then basically tumbled with his snow board down 1/4 of the run, tried to walk back up until a nice person swiped up his glove and brought it down to him, and most disconcertingly, the person who came down in a cocoon slung between two medics, was then attached to a skidoo and quizzed over to a waiting van which did not have any ambulance signs on it, so I am really hoping they were breathing in there, otherwise we just witnessed a dead person.

We caught the 1pm shuttle back into town for lunch, a bit of grocery shopping (since I've now cottoned on to it being Christmas and all tomorrow), which then meant we thought more about the need to book a restaurant for tonight and tomorrow night... And our first choice was already booked out for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Eeek...

Craig went for a walk with Kate and has booked us into a Japanese Curry Pizza place reserved under the name of "Craog". And I found an Italian place where I have requested a reservation for tomorrow night for our Christmas evening meal, where I am hoping to be resting all exhausted from a successful day of earning how to ski!Read more