Technical Difficulties

Yesterday was my first day on the hill. They keep saying that this is a bad year, but it has been some of the best snow I have seen. The mountain is very wide and there is lots and lots of snow. The snow is extremely dry and fluffy. You aren't able to make snowballs with it because it just won't clump together.

So it didn't take me too long to get back in to the swing of carving down the mountain, although I feel a little bit like I'm working too much, forcing the turns out a little bit, which is something I'm going to work on. I have a feeling that this is partly because of the conditions though, what with all the powder. The visibility has been a bit poor at times, which can be a little scary when tearing down the hill. The snow fell all day yesterday. It wasn't continuous, but clouds washed over the mountain throughout the day.

The Lodge Ronde, where I am staying, is a place that has a lot of character about it. The room isn't very big, and I think that I was snoring a bit last night because I woke up under a pile of clothes that were thrown over me to try and break me out of it. This could have been because of the beers that I drank last night. We didn't have too many, but they did seem to have a devestating effect as I was very tired. The first beer was on the house as part of the welcome drinks, then Tony and I slipped and slid our way through the streets of Niseko up to the 100 yen noodle house. My noodles were more than 100yen, they were tasty though.

My muscles are a little bit sore today, but I can't wait to get back up to the mountain. I'm about to have some breakfast. Yesterday I had chilli meatballs, fish, seaweed, noodles, green tea and some other stuff. I gave the raw eggs a miss as I'm not sure how you're supposed to eat them. I've tried raw eggs before, and they're not really my thing.

I'm sorry if I rang you yesterday and then didn't speak. Apparently I left my phone unlocked in my pocket and it decided that it would be good to call people and send them text messages. It was probably doing that when I was falling down the hill. I apologise and I don't think it will happen again because I'm not going to take it with me.

I'm really loving the bidets they have here. The seat warmer is especially nice.