HAKUBA: The Mountain that conquered ME!

HAKUBA: The Mountain that conquered ME!

OF COURSE I CAN SKI

When I was a kid we took nearly annual ski trips to Tahoe with my moms friends Melvin and Frank. These trips were always tons of fun but I never got too far past the bunny slopes. Maybe a Green or a Blue run every now and then if I was feeling extra confident. When I moved to Washington DC, I made it a point to continue skiing, visiting small resorts in Maryland and Pennsylvania. One year Elan invited me to New York to ski with the FAMU crew. During the year of 30th birthdays, we went skiing in ASPEN for Aspen‘s 30th birthday! During that trip, I was one of the only girls to actually ski, and I remember being sooo bored in the beginner ski class. Another Time we went skiing in Maryland, bored again with skiing small hills,  I went up to a larger slope with Tommy (RIP) and took a huge spill. Tommy watched from the sidelines, laughing and making phone calls while I put myself back together. Adding to the embarrassment,  two cute Asian girls who couldn’t have been more than 6-7 years old and waist high, came to my rescue, picking up my polls and giving me advice like “You knowww you need to do the frenchfry- pizza!” I was super defeated, but managed to ski the rest of the way down the hill. My shoulder was sore for weeks after that and I wouldn’t take any medication because I wanted to make sure I felt the pain in case it was broken. LOL

I took 8 suitcases and shipped 24 cartons of my stuff from DC→Taiwan, essentially moving my entire apartment. One of the things I made it a point to pack, was SKI GEAR. James and Brian laughed at the carton labeled ‘ski-gear’, etc’ as they hauled those 24 cartons into my Art Museum Park apartment. Thanks to my auntie Lanta, I had the ski bib, goggles, gloves, and special thermals. I knew that I would ski in Japan at some point! 

When my Besties Kelsey and James asked me to go to Japan, I was initially hesitant; the trip was adding up to be very expensive because of the Chinese New Year Holiday (the largest celebration in Asia). I waited and waited hoping that Olinka or another friend would come through with other fantastic plans, but it never happened. The more I thought about it, I knew this might be my once in a lifetime opportunity to ski in Japan so I bit the bullet, pulled out the magic cards and spent the money for the experience! I booked the same departing Tiger Air flight as James and Kelsey, but I had to book a different return flight through Okinawa because Chinese New Year travel is so crazy. 

TOKYO 

On our first day in Japan we went to a delicious soba noodle restaurant called Kanda Yabusoba. The fresh buckwheat noodles and other traditional Japanese fare were very tasty, a perfect way to touch down in Japan. One of the things I couldn’t help but notice as we walked the streets of Shinjuku were the PACHINKO arcade/ gambling parlors on every corner. These personal gaming stations are like western casinos on steroids, Filled with 20 to 50-year-old men obsessively playing and chain smoking for hours at a time. Walking through the Pachinko arcades was an assault on the senses; bright colors, fluorescent lights, dings, bells, whistles and all manner of jackpot noises! 

We had some time to kill before the robot show so we found this odd place called the Cheers Bar which was staffed by 20-something Japanese women (who looked 16) in cheerleader costumes with squeaky high giggly voices,tiny pleated skirts, pom-poms, and hair bows entertaining Japanese businessman who were certainly old enough to be their fathers and grandfathers. These spunky and upbeat young women poured drinks for us unwitting foreigners while playing a seductive game of look but don’t touch with male patrons exhibiting varying levels of sobriety and engagement. Some were working on their laptops and just in for a drink, others were ‘stumbling drunk,’ belting out karaoke lyrics, while a few sat quietly in their drunken stupors stealing glimpses of the waitresses’ exposed buns and breasts when they could. 

The highlight of our first day in Japan was the Robot Restaurant!  The robot restaurant was tons of fun but it was also a blurrr because I was already several shots of whiskey in by the time we got to the light show. What I remember was a steady procession of blaring, brightly colored floats, great fluorescent costumes and wild wigs, and spectacles like the Samurai sword fight,  robotic T-Rex, Lions and Dragons, a Tropical Scene, Taiko drums and all sorts of things to delight and awaken the senses. Nevertheless, I fell asleep! My friends were amazed at how I could nap during this ruckus laser light show and cacophony of sounds and cheers from the audience! WHAT CAN I SAY? I AM A CHAMPION SLEEPER!

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WHAT GOES UP, MUST COME DOWN!

The next morning we took the cool Japanese high-speed trains AND a bus to the most amazing ski chalet in Hakuba Japan!! My plan was to start the week with a refresher ski course, but it turns out that families from all across Japan and greater Asia had descended upon Hakuba for the ski season. We called around to all of the major ski schools and there were no beginning or intermediate lessons for this particular week. My last experience in ski school was Aspen 2013; where I remembered feeling bored re-learning the basic techniques on the bunny slopes! 

So I went with the crew to rent ski gear and figured “I’ll just wing it!” I’ve skied tons of times in my life! It’s like riding a bike right???” So I did a nice dayglo face beat And got geared up to hit the slopes. Our lift tickets for four days at Happo-One were not cheap. I was so excited as we embarked the crystal birdcage glass lift to the top of the mountain; we could see everything. As we ascended the mountain I took selfies, group shots and gorgeous photos of the snow covered terrain to document these moments. I had never been on a lift this long, it felt like we were ascending to the heavens. When we got off, we were literally at the top of a mountain! Supposedly there was a green (easy) trail that started here, I was skeptical. When we disembarked the lift,  the air was simultaneously thin because of the altitude and thick with a blustery, snowy, white haze that disoriented me. 

It was at this point that I began to PANIC! Realizing in that moment that I DID NOT KNOW HOW TO SKI. My inner dialogue went something like this. “Bitch you’re at the top of a MOUNTAIN. A Mountain Mountain! How TF you get up here? These are real skiers, you see their gear, they’re legit. How you let these WYT folk talk you into this sh*t?” Coupled with an Issa Rae (HBO-Insecure) mirror pep talk “BITCH YOU GOT THIS, this aint your first rodeo! You’ve been skiing all your life! You were the best skier in Aspen!” Finally, I said a quick prayer and told myself, “If all else fails just remember the frenchfry-pizza!! It can’t be that bad, RIGHT?”  

As Kelsey and Stephanie gleefully whizzed past me, I was grateful for the layers of gear hiding the sheer terror on my face. Supposedly, there was a green (easy) run here and we were going to take it slow and steady this first round. But in order to get to that green trail, you had to go down what felt like the steepest little run I’ve ever seen.  Initially I thought, “I got this”, so I watched Kelsey, who is strong and athletic, glide down to the beginning of the green run, then mom, who also needed to get her bearings and adjust a little bit, made her way down to meet Kelsey. 

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Now it was MY turn. 

I still felt completely unsure that my body was going to cooperate, but Kels and Steph had made it look easy and I had to get down this mountain somehow. As I started to ski down this steep slope, the momentum I picked up scared me and I figured “I’m just going to sit down and use my bum to slow me down.” (Great plan! But when was MY butt ever that big?)  What was intended to be a graceful deceleration that would get me to the bottom, became an acrobatic jolt through the air. With all four legs and arms flailing I jutted to the right, crashing directly into three people who were already sitting in the snowbank, and landed with a THUD and a POP. Think I almost decapitated someone. Skis unhinged, poles askew, I began to try and orient myself. Folks nearby came to my assistance, as my friends labored back up the hill to make sure I was alive. My left arm landed behind me on the slope, picture a pretty black rag doll with limbs that are easily detachable. The first things out of my mouth were “I’M OKAY!! But I CAN’T MOVE MY LEFT ARM.” I felt a bit traumatized and reassured my friends with “I’m fine, I just need a bit of rest, and a nice Espresso. Just get me to lodge, I’ll find a comfy spot, get warm, stretch a little, and I’ll be ready to hit it with you guys when you come back up for round two.” Going uphill on the slopes is no small feat, luckily I hadn’t made it far down! As we hiked back up my left arm got progressively worse and worse, but there was no sharp pain. This was a confusing pain, one like no other I had ever experienced! Again, I told Kels, “I just need a coffee!” We finally came to a crossroads, to the right was the fancy restaurant and ski lounge where I planned to chillax, to the left was the medic’s office with the ginormous red cross beckoning me to enter. By this point my arm was throbbing, so I chose the red pill. Remember that POP from my crash landing? Well it turns out that I had dislocated my shoulder! By this point the pain was sooo bad that I could barely stand still. One moment I was pacing, then I tried to lay down, they examined me, I had to take my coat off because it felt like it weighed 100 lbs on my arm. My arm felt like a complete dead weight, and I just knew if I could get it into the ‘right position’ the pain would cease. At this point, I was still pressed to go relax in the lounge, didn’t want to inconvenience my friends and felt I just needed to be still and calm somewhere so my arm could go back to normal.

“I just need a coffee!” 

The medics had other plans! Newton’s law applied here, everything that goes up must come down! Forty-five minutes after I disembarked the gondola lift to the top of the mountain, the three of us were being rushed back down the other side to the ski clinic! I apologized profusely for ruining our first day on the slopes and making them spend their afternoon in the ski clinic. In true clinic fashion, I was not seen right away. What felt like 2 hours probably amounted to about 45 minutes of pure hell. I could not sit still, this numb dull pain was my mental equivalent to being smashed in the arm with a sledgehammer! I stood up, I sat down, I paced, all the while barking orders at Kelsey to “push my arm up, no down, make it level with the shoulder, now bend it at the elbow, move it forward, move it backwards, but not too much”, though nothing helped. I breathed “hee-hee-hoooo, hee-hee-hoo, hee-hee-hoo”, and counted like I was in labor. Finally the doctor called me back and began speaking in Japanese, the translator told us he would need to get an X-Ray so I had to undress. After we explained the accident, they asked Kelsey to leave the room, and two nurses came in to assist me with my clothes. The pain got worse as they tugged at all the layers to disrobe me. Having not cried this entire ordeal (and I’m a cryer), I began to weep as the adrenaline wore off and I felt I was in capable hands. No sooner than I started to feel relieved, I saw a huge throbbing needle coming at me in my right periphery! No one had explained to me that I would be getting a shot, so I forcefully jerked to my right to confront the nurse! At that moment, I heard another loud POP, and let out a bloodcurdling “AHHHHHHHHHH!” that ripped through the entire clinic. Kelsey rushed back into the room to see what had happened. Apparently, I had popped my own shoulder back into the socket!! I felt simultaneous pain and relief. When the doctor reappeared, he joked in broken English that “I’ve never had a patient fix their own shoulder, you’re trying to take my job, but you still have to pay!” After the X-ray which he insisted was protocol, I asked if I could still get the injection, he refused; though he did give me a sling and some damn good painkillers to take home. Back at our ski chalet, we had a blast recounting the events of the day to the rest of the crew! Of course they questioned my skiing experience and wondered why I thought I could ski Hakuba?!? 

We had some good laughs, meanwhile, I enjoyed my painkillers and Whiskey. 

What I realized that day is that I had been skiing Hills, NOT Mountains! 

There is a distinct difference! 

BACK TO THE SLOPES

Alas, my determination to ski in Japan did not wane. The next day I waited in line for 2 hours trying to get a spot in ‘ski school,’ to no avail. I took a couple of days to lick my wounds, eat lots of Ramen and grocery shop for our crew (one of my fav pastimes) with James who couldn’t ski because he had ‘NFL bronchitis,’ and spent many hours bonding with Mama Stephanie Bull at local Onsens (Japanese bath houses with healing hot springs). I finally got the bright idea to check in with our Ski Chalet concierge to find out if any of his friends in town could give me a private lesson. SUCCESS! Though he was understandably worried since I had been in a sling the previous day. He commended my desire to get back on the slopes.  

We started slow. It was back to the bunny slopes for me. My resolve not to fall and further injure my shoulder made me super focused. I quickly realized that this was one of the best investments I had ever made (about $400 for the day, including transport, lessons, lift tickets, and lunch). My Spanish ski instructor was strangely hott, in a rugged, gruff smoker’s voice, messy dread locked latin lover kind of way. The private lesson was worth every penny! I was learning techniques and intricacies of skiing that I had never gotten in ski school. The right edge and left edge of the skis have different functions, weight distribution, how to fall properly (that would have come in handy 3 days prior) , how to walk sideways or at an angle up and down the slopes, so many things that I had never been explicitly taught before. 

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HUMAN STEW

I’m a SPA GIRL!! Any opportunity I have to be pampered and luxuriate in the nude. I take it.

One of the highlights of this trip were the ONSENS. An Onsen is a Japanese Hotspring and Spa; traditionally attended as public bathing and gathering spots, especially during the harsh winter months. In Hakuba, we found 2 great Onsens, #1 A local spot that was cheap, clean, quaint and only crowded during the post-slope evening rush. You put coins in a vending machine type device to pay and were handed your robe, towels and slippers upon entry.  #2 A mountaintop gem about 15 minutes up the hill with spectacular views overlooking the entire snow covered city, the Hakuba Highland Hotel did not disappoint. These onsens provided true bonding opportunities for me and Mama Steph and the various other women we encountered. Nothing will make you raw, honest and vulnerable like stewing and steaming, tits up, and rosy cheeked in a Japanese hot spring. These were some of the most endearing moments of the trip, necessary as I licked my wounds and recovered from blustering Japanese winter days. 

LAURENCE

He still gave me the same butterflies as he approached us at one of Tokyo’s many temples, as he had all those years ago sitting in drab St. Joe’s classrooms giggling and gossiping with Danielle Martinez (RIP) about how hott he was. He Didn’t play basketball like most of the other Black boys at SJND, he played golf. He was nice and understated and I loved his caramel colored moon face and dazzling smile. He always smelled like Tide detergent (Which my mom would never buy! We used Sun, and I always prayed for Tide) and I remember joking about, but mostly admiring the stretch marks on his biceps when he started lifting weights. We were cordial, friendly, but never romantic,he was into the ‘exotic girls’ on campus, not,holy-roller virginal brace-faced Nyala. One year we both attended a debutante ball in San Francisco where we crashed in someone’s suite. The next morning he gave me a ride home in his old-school green BMW and I remember thinking I was going to EXPLODE! My mega crush and teenage girl angst are still palpable today! LOL

Many lifetimes later we became friends and chat buddies on Instagram. At the time he was stationed in Japan and I was moving to Taiwan. When I decided to go on the ski adventure to Japan I immediately reached out; he offered to let me crash with him but the logistics didn’t work out. When he met us at the temple, I didn’t know what to expect. It had been almost 20 years since we graduated high school and I hadn’t laid eyes on him since. We walked, hopped on the train and went to about 4 different spots that night, laughing and joking our way through the hectic streets of Shinjuku. There was a whole group of us together totaling about six, (which created a nice buffer in case he was crazy) but we also had little moments where we were in our own world! We caught up, drank, and even did a few shots. We ended the night at a swanky cocktail bar with an exotic fish tank covering one wall! He was charming and intelligent, telling us about his job as an engineer for the Navy and how crazy and boring it could be on ships and submarines for months at a time. My friends were completely smitten and so was I! My seat was probably wet the entire time. I’m a sucker for a smart man, True sapiosexual here! 

After that I flirted hard via messenger , but he seemed not to notice (he mentioned having a girlfriend at the time). Things fizzled out and he moved back to San Diego for work, though we still chat from time to time. Most recently I had a wonderful pregnancy dream where I was jubilant and flying around the bayou with my Afrocentric Doula! It was a glorious dream and Laurence was the father of the baby! When I told him about it, he didn’t freak out, maybe there’s hope after all. 

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AIRPORT MELTDOWN

Despite an already eventful trip, there was tons of drama to be had in Okinawa! 

Instead of crashing at Laurence’s place, I slept at the apartment we’d rented because it was about an hour closer to the airport. This fun AirBnB came complete with Anime character decorated rooms and traditional Tatami and Shikibuton Japanese style beds on the floor. I made sure I was up at 4 am to catch my flight through Okinawa back to Taiwan. I even had luck with Uber (which is still banned at some airports around the world for competing with local taxis). Unfortunately the weather gods were not acting in my favor. We sat on the tarmac for over two hours as the frigid Japanese winds had their way with us, and they attempted to de-ice the plane. When we finally took off, and arrived in Okinawa, just about everybody with a connecting flight was screwed. My ‘flight deal’ required me to transfer my own luggage and I missed my connector by minutes. When I frantically arrived at the gate, I was informed that this particular airline had no more flights that day, and the next flight would be 2 days later on Monday. NOOOOOO! I hadn’t planned for this, I was actually being responsible now and had booked a flight early enough that I would have the weekend in Kaohsiung to recover and prepare for the upcoming week. In previous years I would typically be coming in hott off the plane from any given vacay within hours of having to report for duty. Thus, I spent a grueling day at the airport going from counter to counter trying to book a new flight, get on standby lists and smooze with any airline employee that would listen. Not to mention the crappy terminal that was filled with dust, scaffolding, and areas covered in tarps due to remodeling. About halfway through the day my local phone/wifi sim expired and I had to use a payphone for the first time in my adult life. I then began communicating primarily on my laptop, which also died at some point during the day. 

At about 12 noon, I had been offered a seat on Monday’s flight and REFUSED to take it! I spent another heart wrenching and futile 8-9 hours at the airport wandering the terminal and almost getting arrested after sitting on the luggage scale at the TigerAir counter and tearfully demanding to be put on the final flight out for the night to no avail. FINALLY DEFEATED, I went to the bathroom and sobbed in the stall, messaging my KAS colleague chat that the Okinawa airport had broken me. An angel named Stacy Crook offered to buy me a ticket for the next available flight on MONDAY, the same flight I had been offered hours earlier. 

LESSON: Sometimes, despite all your planning, It’s better to go with the PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE. 

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NEWTON’S LAW -Everything that can go wrong, WILL GO WRONG! 

As if this day could have gotten any worse, I finally pulled it together, and used Hotels.com to book the ‘Deal of the Day’ at an Okinawa hotel. When I went to hail a taxi, there was a lively convo on who would take me. After driving about 40 minutes outside the city, I took photos of the driver, and the ID card on his dashboard and sent them to Stacy. I was certain that I was being driven to my DEATH, heading to a remote part of Japan to be chopped to bits by a Samurai sword. When I began to question him about the route, the GPS confirmed that he was on the right track. When the meter ran well past the amount of Japanese Yen I had left, I asked him to stop at an ATM, of course the 2 we tried did not work. When we finally arrived, the pix did not match what I had seen online. It was the beachside equivalent of THE SHINING hotel! Huge, vacant, cold and scary. I ended up having to pay the driver in 3 different (JPY, USD, TWD) currencies, what amounted to about $200 USD. I WAS LIVID! How had I not realized that this hotel was sooo far outside of the city limits. I ate a Cup of Noodles for dinner, crashed and prayed that I could get a hot shower in the morning. 

NOPE! The shower was cold, and the breakfast they served was lackluster as well. 

OKINAWA

That morning 2 great things happened. The hotel clerk told me there was a bus back to the Okinawa Airport for about $10USD! And it took credit cards! SCORE 

I spent the next 2 hours taking a relaxing bus ride through the scenic beach towns of Okinawa Japan. WHO KNEW?!? As a historian, the only thing I knew about this Island was the Battle of Okinawa during WWII. It was truly beautiful, watching the turquoise surfside sparkle as rain clouds subsided. How Fitting. I also used Booking.com (my GOTO after this ‘deal’ debacle) to book a chic, modern hotel room with an Onsen in the center of town. After sending my emergency lesson plans, I trekked through the main tourist strip, enjoyed a good Kobe Steak dinner, Ice cream, Cocktails and marveled at all the confections and treats that they made from Purple Sweet Potato, a Japanese Delicacy. The next morning I FINALLY boarded my flight back to Taiwan on Peach Air and lived to tell about it. 

TRAVEL NOTES 

Transport: Tokyo to Hakuba around 1h 30 min by JR Shinkansen from Tokyo Station to Nagano Station, then 1h by bus to Hakuba-cho. We bought all of our tickets on the spot, right inside the train station with no hassle and lots of time slots. 

Accommodations: Hotels are great, but book a SKI CHALET if at all possible!! We got lucky, there was some domestic disaster at our original booking, which included 2 adjoined townhomes, so we had to stay at the Pilot Chalet which was whimsically decorated with all manner of flight paraphernalia. 

In Tokyo we used AirBnB to book 2 great apartments, 1 in Shinjuku and the other in Harajuku 

JOIN THE CONVO!

What’s Your FAVORITE WINTER MEMORY or MISHAP from childhood and beyond????

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