Japan Day Fifteen : Hakuba 4th day on the slopes...

This morning was looking awesome but feeling terrible.

I had slept very poorly all night. Everytime I moved, my knee hurt. After looking up the symptoms on the internet, and now becoming an expert, I have diagnosed myself with a sprained medial collateral ligament if I'm lucky. If I'm unlucky, a partial tear.

I could not fully straighten my leg without pain, and I also couldn't put weight on it while it was bent at less than 90'. Things were not feeling good.

However the snow looked amazing. Another foot last night, and no rain on the way. There was no way I was missing this. I got out to the slopes and went up a lift with Woo. My knee felt fine until I sat down to bind in my left foot. I couldn't get up without pain. Thats a problem. I didnt feel any pain while on the board going down, so I guess I was just going to learn not to stack it so often.

They had shut down the top of the mountain today due to high winds, which meant that with the good snow, good weather, weekend and half the lift running, it was stupidly busy. Me and Woo went to the other side of the mountain, but the lines were just as bad, and there's no way their green runs were actually for beginners. We did a few runs there and then came back to Sakka, where we were before and had lunch.

As expected the cafeteria was packed. I grabbed some seats while Woo got the food. A small Asian girl came back the her stuff, which she had left of the table to mark her spot as she got lunch. She looked and me, I looked at her. Then she said in a broad Australian accent "Hows it going?" I was a little surprised, to say the least. Her name is Monique, she's an ABC, (Australian Born Chinese, for anyone who's not Crispy) and lives in Melbourne. Me and Woo talked about how much we love Melbourne, which seems to be a theme whenever we meet anyone from there.

We boarded most of the afternoon together, including going up to Skyline, only to find it closed and having to come all the way back down on the stupid fucking trail that I hate. I fell over while on the trail, and landed on my ass. I'm pretty sure I ruptured my bowel. I felt like I was gonna shit myself, and if it wasn't for the fact that I was halfway up a mountain, I definitely would have made a visit to the Mens.

I finally made it back down the bottom, and did a few more runs with Monique. Woo had gone back to the hotel by this stage, although I didn't know that. I got back to the hotel and found him at the bar. Apparently he had a mega stack and heard his neck click and then decided that it was a good idea for him to call it a day.

We went out to a pub called "The Pub" that night. There was some sort of "fire festival" on, but it was just a few fireworks and some people skiing down the slopes at night. We didn't go out in the cold, instead we stayed in the warmth while Woo did doubles of whatever he was drinking and got himself well nailed. Kirsty and Josh found him most amusing, especially while we were waiting for a bus to take us back to our hotel at 1:30am. It was called the "party bus", but when it showed up, it was basically just a Tarago. They did give us a lift back to our hotel though, and thats all that matters.