Skating, Singing, Snowboarding

Aimee and I officially sold our souls to join a Friday night Hip Hop dance class in Nakajo.  From the inspiration of MTV’s ABDC, and the desire to one day be a backup dancer for JT, I hope to get my money’s worth and get a lot better at dancing than I am right now.  Time has yet to tell how many Friday nights I’m willing to sacrifice, but after two classes I’m not yet bored and looking forward to tomorrow J

Saturday’s musical performance was scheduled for a pretty big venue in Joetsu.  The building not only housed a concert hall, but also a swimming pool and ice skating rink.  Jenelle had the brilliant idea of showing up early to go skating for a couple hours before the show, and that is exactly what we did.  Being from Canada, ice-skating runs through her blood.  I tried to mimic her ‘shoot the duck’ and spiral moves, and actually almost landed a triple salchow – NOT!!

After the musical, we celebrated Holly’s last performance with, duh, karaoke!  A few of us who had our hearts set on snowboarding at Ikenotaira the next day called it a relatively early night. 

The city of Myoko boasts loads of ski-jos that are pretty well known through Japan.  Last weekend we went to Suginohara, and this weekend Marshall, Dave, Lauren, Courtney, Jenelle, and I tried out Ikenotaira.  Though not quite 8.5km long, Ikenotaira had the same wicked view of snow white mountains and a pristine lake from the top.  The slopes weren’t ridiculously steep so everyone could enjoy going and getting better.  There were some ‘bump jumps’ toward the bottom – I looked up to see Courtney bite it pretty hard. At one point one of the screws in my bindings came out, but luckily Marshall found it before I could give myself a heart attack.  The weather was beautiful and warm, though a little less than ideal for snowboarding and skiing.  We haven’t gotten much snow in the past couple of weeks, so the snow was a little slushy during the day and turned to heavy mush right before we left.  Jenelle’s temporary ‘box car’ struggled slowly through the slushy parking lot.  Once it successfully made it to the road and started to pick up speed, she looked in her rearview mirror and saw the car behind her swerve.  “Naomi, do you have your huge black mittens?” pause … think …  pause “OH NO!!!  I left them on top of your car!!!!”  So she turned the box around to find two huge black mittens lying in the middle of the road.  You know you’re in Japan when the passing cars go out of their way to avoid running over random lost gear.