the tall blond guy goes to japan

Hello, Dokam!

SSAWS

"SSAWS" is what the SkiDome subtitles itself as. It means "Spring Summer Autumn Winter Snow". Truly inspired.

The zoom lens on my digital camera is lovely. As soon as I could get a clear shot, I zoomed right in, and sure enough- the words "SkiDome" where in big English letters on the top! Yay!

Twenty minutes later, I was standing in a lineup.

The SkiDome!

Twenty minutes later, I was still in the lineup. I'd counted three people with Whistler-Blackcomb stuff on their bodies.

Small Blue Piece of Plastic With A Metal Thingy Stuck On It

When I finally bought my ticket (actually, a small blue piece of plastic with a metal thingy stuck on it), they told me that since the place was too full, I had to wait for about an hour inside before I was allowed to ski. Whatever. Sure. Okay. I'm here, and come hell or high water, I'm going to ski. Maybe not right away, but I will and I will enjoy it, even if I have to force myself to.

From the outside, it looks like a big rampy thing. I guess the people in the office described it correctly after all.

Big Rampy Thing

The rampy bit contains two seperate tracks down. There's a not-so-steep (14 degree) slope for "intermediate" skiiers, which turns into a 9 degree slope at the bottom for beginners. There's also a somewhat steeper slope (20 degrees) for "advanced" skiiers. The advnaced run, I found, was much easier, bedcause there are far fewer people trying to go down, so it's more fun skiing and less crazy people, dodging. The only time I fell was on the "intermediate" run, when some other skiier hit me from behind. One nice thing is that they are extremely apologetic.

The two runs in the dome.

Before I got to ski, I sat in the lounge and watched a kind of Japanese game show. It was really bizarre, like something they would show on Nickelodeon in the US, except everyone involved was over 25. It seemed to be a men vs. women thing. The part I saw had some kind of endurance test of how long they can stay in freezing cold water while people are splashing more water at them. The women (inexplicably dressed in modest swimsuits) have to sit in the water, while the men (in very nice suits) splash water at them. One of the women grabbed hold of one of the men and pulled him, suit and all, into the water with her. The audience went nuts, and the show ended. Then it was my turn to ski!

From the ski lift, facing down.

Yes! They even had two (extremely backed up) ski lifts. For the ski-lift illiterate, they had moving sidewalk things too.

The whole thing, including ski rental, came to about Y5500 (about cdn$65 or so). I can ski Whistler-Blackcomb for about that, including rentals. That's crazy! And everyone was there dressed up with their fancy matching suits (or the rentals you can get from the SkiDome). I wore my jeans and a sweater and a coat. I was even thinking of ditching the coat after a while. It was only minus 4 or so inside. Warm, by my ski standards. Becides, I didn't bring any ski stuff with me. While I was standing in line, a man pointed at my hands and said, "Not cold?"

"No," I said, "not cold. This is warm!". He seemed impressed, and we kept talking.

"Are you American?"

(Shudder) "No, Canadian. From Vancouver".

"Ahhh! Ban-cou-ba!" This man's been to Lake Louise, Banff, and Whistler-Blackcomb as well. He was in Vancouver three years ago on vacation. We went down the run together (which took about 30 seconds- I'm not that fast, it's just that short), then had some hot chocolate. I tried to pay for it, really I did! Well, he got a Team Canada pin.

Dokam Hayachi and me. Ski Buddies. Yeah!

I did another run while he finished his pizza, then he offered me a ride to the train station. I think he pitied me because I told him the "how I got here" story. He started laughing when I told him the name of the station I'd gotten off at. That was not a good sign.

We got into his Mitsubishi Something, and he got out a map to find out the way to the station. Oh-oh. Then we got lost in the parking lot trying to find the exit. Oh my. We finally got on our way (yelling at a pedestrian to ask directions only once) and I got to the train station rather uneventfully, totally prepared for today's last adventure before getting home...