Posts tagged Hiroshima
Snowboarding!

Last weekend I went to Geihoku Mountain in Hiroshima Prefecture to go snowboarding.  It was great!  Geihoku isn’t as big as some other mountains that I have been to in Japan, such as Daisen or Niseko, but it was really fun to get out and go snowboarding for the first time this year.  I went with four other people, one of whom is a NEO student.

The only bad part about the trip was that our bus left from Okayama Station at 5:50 AM!  It was very early for me, since I usually wake up at about 11 or 12.  I was able to get a little sleep on the bus, however, so it wasn’t that bad.

Our skill levels ranged from beginner to advanced, but it was fun to go down the mountain together, and the better snowboarders were able to help the beginners learn.

There are two mountains that make up the resort, and in the morning we stayed on the smaller one (on the left in the picture) to let the beginners get used to snowboarding again.

 For lunch we had some delicious curry and udon, and then we went to the bigger mountain, which was only a five-minute shuttle ride away.  This was much more fun for me, since the smaller mountain only took me about two minutes to get from the top to the bottom.  The bigger mountain offered much more varied terrain, and it had something for snowboarders of all levels.  FYI (for your information), in English a コース on a mountain isn’t called a ‘course’, but is instead called a ‘run’ or a ‘trail’.

 This is me relaxing and taking a break (I like doing that):

 

And this is a couple of my friends trying out the easier mountain:

 

And this is my friend and I having a snowball fight:

(I won.)

It was a great time, and I can’t wait to go again at least once this season.  Maybe next time I can go to Hyogo or Gifu!

Return to Hiroshima

I went to Hiroshima Prefecture last Sunday.  I started my trip at about 9 AM and took the train with some friends to Saijo, which is east of Hiroshima City.  There, we joined the Sake Matsuri, which is a festival celebrating Japanese Sake.  I have been to Saijo before and tasted sake, but I have never been to a festival celebrating it.  It was a lot of fun, and there were a lot of people there.  It was nice to make new friends and try lots of different times of sake.  There were over 900 kinds of sake there from all over Japan.  I wanted to try all of them, but I was only able to have a few.  It was a great time.

After the Sake Matsuri I went to a party where I used to live, in Mihara City.  Mihara is a small city on the coast of the Japan Inland Sea.  I had dinner and drinks with my friends there, and it was good to see them again after a few months. 

I’m not sure when I will get a chance to go back there again.  I had a great time, and got home at about midnight.  It was a long day, and very tiring, but it was a lot of fun!

 

Hal