Ski trip

It's taken me a while to post this, but we had a fun overnight ski trip to Karuizawa, a town and ski resort that's not too far from Tokyo. Lucinda, Arno and I woke up early on a Monday morning and met our friends, Ikuyo and Celine Maeda and Laurie, Ken, Sylvan and Max Lebrun. Celine and Sylvan are in 1st grade with Lucinda at Nishimachi, and Max is in Arno's class at Willowbrook.

We crowded eight of us into six seats...


...and about 75 minutes later arrived at Karuizawa, where it was about 20 degrees colder. We could see the ski mountain from the train station.



At the mountain, I rented skis, boots, and even (thanks, Japan!) ski clothes for the kids and signed them up at the ski school run by the Ski Association of Japan. My plan didn't work so well. I hoped that Lucinda's presence in the same lesson would ease Arno's introduction to skiing, but Arno screamed his head off and refused to let go of me. Eventually someone from the ski school came to me and said, in English and with typical Japanese understatement, "If you leave, he will separate." So I left and, when I circled back to take some secret photos, he was, of course, just fine.


After lunch, I bribed Arno with chocolate to convince him to take another SAJ lesson, this time with his friend Max, even though the lesson was admittedly dull - walking up and skiing down a slope that was barely there. Meanwhile, I went skiing with Lucinda and her friends and their moms. The resort is sometimes compared to Aspen for glitz (which I didn't see), but the skiing is very mild compared to any Colorado mountain. The snow was all manmade and the runs were perfect for beginners.

Later, we all checked into the Prince Hotel and were driven to little cabins at the resort. It was basic, but cozy, with heated wooden floors, a kitchenette with green and roasted teas, and slippers by the front door.



Each cabin had two rooms with twin beds and a dining room with a TV. The other children came over to watch television. Later, we had a big Chinese dinner in the hotel and sacked out early.



The next day, a friend of Ikuyo's helped me arrange Arno's ski school and, before I knew it, I'd signed him up at the more expensive program owned by former Japanese World Cup racer Okabe Tetsuya. It was 6,000 yen (about $75) for a two-hour group lesson, twice the cost of the SAJ lesson. But we got lucky: Arno was the only student. An actual two-hour private lesson would have cost about $180!

So here's Arno with his own personal instructor. They went on lifts all over the mountain, and Arno had a wonderful time.


I went skiing again with Lucinda, who gained a lot of confidence during our two days there. The other girls had more experience, but by the end, Lucinda was following them everywhere, even on an intermediate slope.


Here we all are - even Arno - on top of the mountain.