The last ski of the season

Just another note from my last skiing trip of the season. This time a small group (three) of us went up to Ciao skiing place (2,190m), somewhere between Nagano and Gifu prefecture (http://www.ciao.co.jp).

The timing wasn't so good as the temp was rising already. In fact, when we arrived there around 6 o'clock in the morning, it was raining. What a big disappointment! Then we went to sleep for about 2 hours in the car and guess what! We awoke to some piles of snow.. I'd like to think that while we were sleeping, God has kindly dropped some snow for us to enjoy. And from then on, it was nice weather till Sunday when we were heading home. Here are the views from the first day:




From all the places I've been to, Ciao has the simplest course. From the top, we just have to choose East(blue), Center(green) or West(red). It's neat because I don't have to carry the map with me. And also for the first time I experience the skiing place where it's using manual lift/gondola ticket checking.

All of us somehow just took it easy this time. For me, the news of the death of Natasha Richardson on the beginners skiing slope in Canada kinda held me back a bit. It reminded me that this is a dangerous sports. And since it's gonna be my (our) last skiing trip, I just wanna enjoy the moment, the snow and the time off. But then... the reminder lasted only for a short time, because I couldn't resist taking the challenge that MM threw at me, to try skiing through the bumps, which I successfully failed at.


This trip felt more like a culinary travel, as it happened that the ryokan we were staying at serves a wonderful Japanese meal at dinner time. There were about 10 types of food on the tables (I don't even wanna begin to imagine how they're gonna wash all the small cute dishes). It was really BIG meal because I couldn't finish my food 2 nights in a row, even after all the exhaustion from skiing.


Japanese style breakfast..


(dinner second night with yakiniku beef inside that black pot)


And the room where we were staying at was so spacious and has a wonderful river on the valley view. On the evening, I would just sit by the window, enjoying the view and the peace.

(the view from our room)
(the tatami area where we were sleeping on. Our beds were made up every evening and morning, by the way. Great service!)


The area around there is really picturesque. I managed to take this shot with my mobile phone from a moving car, and I just love it!

Ah~~ it's time to keep my skiing gear and boots back in the corner of the cabinet.. So long!