Thai Students in Japan's Ski Trip 2006 : Part I

Jan 5-7 was set for our annual Ski Trip for Thai students in Japan. I honestly had no confidence of joining the trip since the beginning cuz my thesis due date is Jan 5-10. The thought of not being here for thesis submission was just too scary. But admitting the fact that I prolly couldn't handle knowing everyone's having fun on the ski slopes while I suffer writing my thesis during that time, I decided to rush finishing up everything before the trip date. There were a lot of times I really wanted to give up though. How I'm glad I did not. Thanks so much everyone for your caring support and all. It really meant a lot to me. (^^) This ski trip was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it so much. Overseeing a lot of people's personalities and the way they mingled really touched me a lot. I came back with heaps of great feelings with me. Thanks everyone!

Okie doke.. after sneaking to my professor's office to dash out the paper, I rushed back home and got ready to go to Kyoto Eki to catch the night bus.

Jan 4:
22.30 p.m.~ Departing Kyoto

The Kyoto people gathered at Kyoto Station before moving together to MID parking lot to wait for the bus coming from Osaka. We were supposed to board the bus at around 23.00, but unfortunately we didn't get to do so until 00.30 a.m.! At first I really thought there were some mis-communication with the driver or so, but later found out it was the travel agency that was so bad in coordinating everything! tsk! tsk! We were lucky everyone were easy-going and didn't really get mad at the fact that we had to wait in the cold for nearly 2 hours. We got to the parking lot when there were millions people waiting for the bus, but were the last group to leave. The good point was that we got to reminisce our childhood game (Balloon) during our wait. It was rather a fun passing time activity. At one time I really forgot we were waiting for the bus. ^^

Jan 5: Hakuba Goryu Ski Resort, Nagano Prefecture

We started our new day on the bus with other 40+ members from Kansai (Osaka+Kyoto). We all are divided into 6 groups, by colors -- red, blue, sky blue, yellow, green, and black, with equivalent numbers of experienced members and newbies. The black is for the only one snowboarder group, which of course where I belonged. After a bit of self-introduction among ourselves, we rested for the night.

The bus brought us to Hakuba Goryu Ski Resort in Nagano Prefecture safely at around 7 a.m. We dropped off our luggage at the hotel (my hotel was El Monte', the least previledge among the 3 hotels we occupied!! haha) But it was alright. It wasn't all that bad. Only just off original expectation. Then, we moved to 'Escal Plaza' to do equipment and wear rental. Geezzzzz..... the Thais joining the trip were ALL there! So big a group!! (75 people in total) The good thing about Hakuba Goryu is that they have Salomon equipment rental corner which put us at ease of any worries about bad equipments. It's the best rental I have been to in Japan so far. Our group was quite slow in all the rental and changes, so I lost half of our black color members from Kanto (Tokyo) . The Nagoya people were still waiting, so we got to ride together. Our group member for today were Ying and p'Wan from Nagoya, P'Oh+ from Osaka, P'Peera from Hiroshima and Na and P'Aom from Kyoto. The latter three were our newbies. We were so lucky that the three were fast learners. I'm totally impressed in their spirit. I think I was awfully worse than them when I started snowboarding! We did a few times of rides on the lower hills (green for beginners), then decided to challenge ourselves to the top of Gondola and down the red (medium level of difficulty). There were some parts that were quite too difficult for beginners and I think I did scare them some much. I'm so very sorry!!! We finished our day there and started walking back to the hotel together.

pWan, Na, Ying+ and P'Aom before start boarding for the day.

The Spirit of Nagoya people ^^

Some Kanto snowboard members: Boy, Touch, Fuse and Nut

Na, pWan, pAom and Mai

That night we gathered all members at our hotel and did some activities together. We explained some games we're gonna do on the ski slope for the second day and also some other funny games for us to have fun. I think everyone was quite exhausted. I was also very much exhausted. It was the first day in a really long time I dozed off before even 11 p.m.!!!

(The story's to be continued ....)