"He's Behind You!"

I eventually got to Nagaoka around 6pm. Spent most of yesterday afternoon faffing before starting the drive up. I picked up Nick, Ryan and Emma and we drove to the Nagaoka Lyric Hall for the ALT play. The play is an annual event organised by ALTs in Niigata. It is performed around Niigata with the aim of raising money for an aid charity working in Papua New Guinea. This year's play was Peter Ja-Pan. It was really entertaining. It's done in a mix of Japanese and English, aimed at elementary school children but with enough jokes to keep the adults amused. It was funny seeing my mates acting on stage. They were all really professional, eventhough Ryan, Nick and I had sat on the front row especially to put them off. There are three more performances so I'll catch the play again in Niigata City.

After the play was an enkai in Baden Baden, and German-themed bar. The enkai was nomihodai (all you can drink) so we were all pissed by the time we finished. Some of us also went on to another bar, Nameless, where I most of my conversations falling asleep half wa through sentences. It's the closest you'll get to a sleep-dancing Cloudy at the mo.

Woke up this morning without a hangover, as usual. I drove Tiff and Liz back to their car (it refused to start last night) and then picked up Nick to go snowboarding at Minami Ski-jo.
Compared to Matsudai, Minami is huge! It has about four or five ski lifts, two of which take a good 5-10 mins to travel on. There's quite a variety on the slopes too. The first big slope is quite shallow, and good for practising your balance. This then send you down one of three runs; one for snowboard jumping, one for fast skiing and another quite gentle one. The gentle one twists and turns so it's good for practising turning. There was a fork at one point, which I took and quikly realised it was the cross-country ski run. This is bad for snowboards because it runs pretty flat at some points, on which a snowboard won't move.

Just before my lift pass run out, I took the second major lift to the top of the mountain; if I'm higher up, I get a longer run and more for my money don't I? It was really high up, and quite steep. I was a bit scared but excited too. I'd had a good day so my confidence is high. I had my new goggles so I could see properly. What could go wrong? Well, I didn't expect a binding to freeze up. The ankle binding on my lead foot wouldn't fasten. I tried everything I could think of but it wouldn't hold. So I had to go down the whole mountain with just my toe! It was pretty difficult turning right and I fell a few times, once into powder so I spent a while digging myself out, but the run was brilliant!

I'm going to come back here next Friday. It's a Bank Holiday so I should be able to spend the whole day there.