While Pingles was planning this trip, I asked if we could ski or snowboard in Karuizawa. She looked into it and set it up, even though neither she nor any of her colleagues had ever skied before. I told her to make sure everyone get lessons as part of the package. When we arrived, there were no lessons available. I felt my stomach tighten - I was worried someone was going to get hurt. I had no idea that the person I had to worry most about was Pingles, herself.
She and I decided to snowboard rather than ski. We got our gear and I steered her to the bunny slope and had her try that. "Don't worry, I wakeboard in Singapore, I will pick this up in no time." She fell all the way down the bunny slope. She was sitting on her rear when she pointed up at the ski lift and happily asked "ready to go up, babe?" I couldn't figure out a quick way to talk her out of it so off to the lift we went. On the ride up I had visions of her with broken legs and arms.
She fell getting off the lift but laughed it off. We each strapped in our free foot and I took the lead. I went about 30 yds and stopped to take a look back at her. She fell on her ass, fell on her front, fell on her arms but kept getting up. Matter of fact, she fell all the way down. When she got to the bottom she cheerily said "let's do it again!" Second time down, amazingly, she got the feel of it and pointed her board down the hill to pick up speed, falling many fewer times. By the third run she had gained a lot of confidence. Very impressive, I must admit.
It deserved a good lunch. We both got omelette rice, which is just that - an egg omelette stuffed with rice. Mine had a nice brown gravy on it. During lunch we talked about planning our next snowboarding trip. Someone caught the fever....
3 comments:
Plenty of places to go in Cali. We will be going twice in NM before we make the move. You two should join us during the season next year!
am i included?
@ Lil Sis (what does simple_starving to be safe mean?) - The more the merrier, you're always welcome.
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