New College Ski Trip
The ski trip organised by NCSC every Reading Week has been an annual event for the guys living in Robinson house, and having inside connections ensured that we secure the precious few spots available: Dylan was last year’s organiser and Brent took over the helm from him this year.
There’s an ongoing debate among us about whether skiing or snowboarding is better; although we’ve declared a stalemate and agreed that each has its own merits, snowboarding is definitely gaining more converts.
With the painful experiences I had with snowboarding still fresh on my mind, I decided to stick to skiing; after all, I was here at Blue Mountain for a good time, not break my bones. But more importantly, I realised there was a lot of room for improvement in my skiing techniques after my trip to Whistler last Christmas; and the only way to improve is to practice more. I’ve always been a perfectionist, albeit a lazy one.
It’s never a good idea to bring along a digital camera for skiing because the extreme cold and heavy condensation in the jacket will do great damage to electronics. And when you’re the only person foolish enough to bring yours, everyone suddenly wants to be your best friend; however, the downside of being the designated photographer is that you don’t get to be in the photos very often.
After a few quick warm-up runs down the beginner slope, we went on to tackle the more difficult trails; but soon disaster struck. RJ had accidentally placed his snowboard beside a fireplace last Christmas, and the heat cause quite a bit of damage to it. Portions of the lamination splintered from his snowboard as he was coming down one of the trails, and he was savouring the wonderful taste of fresh snow whenever the board got jammed. Since we only had 4 hours left before the bus arrive, it was not worth the money for him to get a rented snowboard; RJ was thus forced to spend the rest of the day hibernating in the cafeteria while we continued to have fun on the slopes.
Jay and I decided to check on the progress of the rest of the Robinson guys who were practicing on their snowboarding skills on the beginner slope all day, and they were doing amazingly well for beginners who had barely snowboarded. My psychomotor skills are terrible, which explains why I’m bad in all kinds of sports; I guess when you’re such a slow learner everyone else is talented compared to you. I still remember teaching Brent how to ski 2 year ago, and he mastered what I learnt in 2 full days of skiing in just 3 hours. Perhaps I’m just a damn good teacher.
What a better way to end a great day on the ski slopes than with a sumptuous meal after a hot shower, and sumptuous meal equates Japanese food for us; off we went to our usual hangout New Generation. Although my attention was focused on the food most of the time, a drunk Joseph definitely make a much more interesting subject for the camera than my plate of chicken katsu.
I’m already planning for our next ski trip. To Blue Mountain and beyond!