Shreddin' (Almost)

Having already defied doctor's orders to stay off my sprained foot (see my post about my race with a potato truck), I decided to sneak in some snowboarding this weekend. I swaddled my sprain in some amazing Japanese BenGay slow-release miracle bandages, and, foot fully numb, joined some friends at SkiJam, a beautiful (check out the snow-covered peaks in the shot above) Fukui-based ski resort about 45 minutes from my apartment.

My foot was great the whole time.

My performance on the mountain? A little less than great.

While the Ski Jam slopes are slightly less intimidating than the seemingly 90-degree drops I encountered while riding in Nagano a few weeks back, I still spent more time on my a$$ than on my actual deck.

However, neither my bum foot nor my common sense could keep me from attempting to do some off-trail riding. I ventured into a supposed-to-be-off-limits tree-lined pass with a fellow Fukui JET and rode through virgin powder before I lost my momentum and sunk, knee-deep, into the snow. The more I struggled to carve myself out, the further I sunk. You can see my "WTF?" expression in the up-to-my-knees-in-snow picture above as I contemplate my fate. Priceless.

I ended up unstrapping my board and holding it above my head as I hoofed it out of the pass, sinking deeper into the snow with each step but giggling the entire way.

Back on the main run, I sat to the side and prepared to strap my feet back into the bindings, but the board slipped out of my hands and proceeded to fly down the mountain. I chased after it, yelling a combination of all of the English, Japanese and Spanish vulgarities I knew.

You might appreciate that running downhill in bulky snowboarding boots is a difficult task. Running downhill in snowboarding boots with a sprained foot only exacerbates those difficulties. The snowboard got further and further away from me, a purple blur speeding downhill. Further down the run, an extremely kind Japanese skier, ostensibly hearing my multilingual cries for help, reached out and stopped the board with his ski pole. He looked up the mountain, trying to find the source of the renegade deck, only to see a crazy, snow-covered, obscenities-spewing gaijin girl barreling toward him.

I tripped once. I'm sure he saw me. Hazukashi (embarrassing).

I finally met him a good 400 meters down the mountain, gasping for breath and brushing the snow off of my face, coat, and pants. I pulled myself together enough to muster a deep bow (also extremely difficult to do in snowboarding boots with a bum foot) and my most humble "arigato gozaimashita." I expected him to laugh at me -- or at least crack a smile -- but instead he solemnly handed me the board, bowed, and then whizzed away on his skis.

Reflecting on his reaction (or lack thereof) as I type, it actually didn't surprise me that much at the time. He was saving face. (My face, that is.) I also wasn't surprised at the fact that my ski lodge lunch options were limited to curry, rice and sushi. It didn't strike me as out of the ordinary that I could hum along to almost all of the J-Pop songs blaring out of the SkiJam speakers as we rode the lifts. I didn't bat an eyelash at the crazy, straight-out-of-Harajuku fashion statements I saw on the slopes. And I obliged -- just once -- when someone asked to take a picture with me, the token gaijin snowboarder.

Could it be that I'm actually beginning to get this place?

Scary thought. I think I'd better stick to laps at the pool this week.