Tasmania to Tokyo – Kiroro – Day 76 can be found here.
Another glorious sleep-in day today. How long has it been since we managed two in a row? I seem to recall that was during the two sea days between Kaohsiung, Taiwan and Incheon, South Korea.
That doesn’t seem too long ago, but it’s been three full weeks.
There’s an extra large question mark hanging over today, as our son was responsible for getting himself up and heading out for snowboarding lessons. I head over to check up on them, and I’m pleased to see that he’s fed, sunscreened and ready to go.
The rest of us grab our own breakfast – sausage, eggs, and some lovely toasted baguette – and then head back to the room to finish getting ready.
With our son safely ensconced in lessons, my wife and I take our daughter out to the mountain once more. It’s even warmer than yesterday, with the sun beating down on us. We grab the gondola up from the resort, and then a chairlift – Nagamine No. 1 Express – over to the Nagamine side of the resort.
Unfortunately, the man in front of us is attempting to bring his partner along with him – and his partner does not have skis on. This is fine on the gondola, but not on a chairlift. The man starts by arguing with the attendant, then calls back his partner to try and arrange a meeting spot.
Meanwhile, he’s not moved to the side and four empty chairs have gone up. We tell him to move to the side to let others past. He doesn’t step aside, but does eventually board the lift. Some people!
There is no question that Kiroro seems to be more of a ‘beginner hill’ – not so much in the types of runs that are offered – as there are some mogul and expert runs – but more in the sense of who’s staying here at Club Med.
Most of these beginners are staying on experience-appropriate runs, but not all of them. Those red stains we saw yesterday? That was blood. And we’ve lost track of how many injured guests we’ve seen around the resort.
Nagamine No. 1 Express is busy this morning because it’s a beginner route. Thankfully, we’re off to a more advanced route – so we ski down a bit until we board the Nagamine No. 2 Express up to the Namagine peak. What a view!
We head down one of the intermediate runs – Nagamine 2A – until we get to a cut through. And here’s where we make a mistake. We attempt to use the cut through, thinking that it offered a gentle path back to the chairlift.
We were wrong.
My wife stops when she realizes that there is a small river flowing through the run. Even a ski patrol member takes off his skis to get across it. She decides it’ll be impassable for us as a group, and motions for us to go back.
Meanwhile, our daughter and I are already halfway down the turnoff. So we all face a long, tiring schlep up the mountain so that we can continue down the intermediate run.
Back down the beginner run we go, doing our utmost not to engage in a vigrous round of ‘beginner bowling.’ Most guests are pretty good, but there are some who seem to be lost in a world of their own. Please do not take up the entie width of the run, even while practicing your turns. And please do not film your kids with a phone while you are skiing. This is why GoPros were invented!
Anyway – I digress. We make it back down the hill, and take the gondola up to the Asari Peak, where we were yesterday. Here we take another few runs down Asari Panaroma, and they are again glorious – apart from the family of four who is both taking up the entire width and filming their kids, and the couple who stopped to build a snowman but accidentally left their gear strewn over the run. (To be fair, they immediately moved their gear once they realized it had fallen over.)
Overall, a lovely day to be out on the mountain:
You can see all the way down to the ocean. Amazing to think that the nearest coastline belongs to Russia.
But the runs are growing increasingly slushy. Two ‘ambulance’ snow mobiles with flashing sirens pass us as we are coming downhill. So we pack it in at this stage and head off for lunch before any of us get too tired.
Off to lunch! There is a limbo bar for those seeking to enter the restaurant area, plus a hot dog station with toasted buns.
That really hits the spot after a long morning on the hill.
Back down to the lobby for a bit more reading / writing / homework, then we follow a familiar routine – the kids head off for Teens Club around 3:30 pm, and the adults get to go relax on their own.
We’ve entered a very comfortable phase in this trip – safe in the knowledge that we had skiied / boarded the two days we’d hoped to make, and that we’re at a comfortable resort where we can trust the staff to right any major wrongs. The rest of the trip is chocolate sauce from here on.
(So says our daughter, who does not like gravy).
Evening creeps onward, and I sneak outside to get a few shots of the exterior of the Club Med Kiroro Grand and the setting sun:
There’s also a small market here. But we have everything we need, so I don’t bother going in.
Off to dinner – the food can still be a bit hit-and-miss but there are usually plenty of options. If you don’t like something, leave it and try something else. Generally I’ve found the Asian food offerings to be tasty, and I quite like the Hokkaido steamed rice.
(Food not pictured today as it’s not particularly photogenic buffet fare. But it is tasty!)
The kids head back to the room for shortly after 8 pm. By this point we are wrecked – nothing left to do but go to bed and do it all over again tomorrow.
So long as the rain holds off long enough…