Nagano is for ...

Nagano is for people more adept at skiing than I. As has been proven so many times in the last 25 years, I am far more adept at falling over. After three days on the slopes, not much has changed, except for that fact that I now know that hard snow leaves its fair share of bruises on a soft body. I've also pulled muscles I didn't even know I had, and I've had my share of ice down the undies.

Overall, I'd say the experience was worthwhile if only to remind me that somes things are beyond even the most positive-thinking people. As I am not always the most positive-thinking person, the terror I felt going down the slopes was difficult to rationalise into some kind of step towards enlightenment. It didn't help that Nagano was in the midst of one of the warmest winters on record, thus leaving any chance of an easy run on the gentler, lower slopes, an impossibility. Instead, we were left with the inevitability of a stomach-in-mouth almost-plummet down a slope riddled with obstacles. Bends and curves, ice patches, merging skiers, and those damnable snowboarders with their couldn't-give-a-stuff-if-you're-a-beginner-attitude. (Poor Stu assumed by just looking at them that it was a much easier thing to master than skiing, an assumption he quickly learned to rue as he tried time and time again to successfully slide down the slope. He was forced to give up when his coccyx cried "no more!".) After that, he stuck to the slightly less harrowing challenge of skiing.

Anyway, enough grumbling. The days were mostly sunny, warmish and full of worthwhile exercise. The nights were full of, well, exhaustion and soreness actually. I had a good time, took some pictures, and soaked each day away in the hotel bath.