Skiing

I almost suffocated to death in the car on the way to the ski resort. I was politely keeping my mouth shut because I have come to understand that in Japan the temperature inside vehicles must be inversely proportional to the weather outside. In summer trains are cold enough to make my legs freeze off and in winter buses so hot that I sweat all over my expensive dry-clean-only sweaters. And on a snowy January morning the driver's car is hot enough to cause death. Also in the car were Chie, the sister and the two kids. It was totally unbelievable to me that no one had said anything for the past hour about how hot the car was, the heating was on full blast at 26 degrees and we were all wearing full winter ski wear; vests, t-shirts, two sweaters and dual-layer waterproof ski suits.

The young son was in the back middle seat (wearing a seatbelt, which is rare) and wanted to watch an USAVICH DVD. It was a series of animated shorts which must surely be the product of hallucinogenic drugs and childhood sexual abuse by rabbits. Imagine Bugs Bunny but produced by suicidal babies. Halfway through I fell asleep or maybe passed out from the heat. In a semi-conscious daze I could hear the music from the DVD playing and eventually woke up to realise the menu screen had been playing on loop - for how long I don't know, because I was having nightmares about drugged-up rabbit babies. Why had no one turned it off? Then the boy child asked me to play the whole thing again... I drifted back to the cocaine bunnies.

Eventually the sister asked to have the heating turned down and I thought seriously about the possibility that her one-year-old daughter may already be dead. The child locks on the windows were disabled and I stuck my head out the window and took the cold air into my mouth as though it was water and that it is actually what it felt like. Out of politeness I tried not to overdo it but soon I began sucking in the air like a puppy suckling on a chilled tete. Then the windows had to be closed again because...?

Then the best moment happened and it's the moment that I've been building to until now. When everyone kept complaining about the heat the driver hovered his fingers over the heating controls and almost pressed TEMP DOWN but receded and almost pressed POWER DOWN but receded. He changed the direction of the air then put the temperature down from 26 to 24 but then back to 25.5 and this went on for maybe a minute and it was beautiful. A beautiful male dance called Convincing a woman that you are listening to her. I admired his art but the car was too hot, towards the end of the journey I was sticking my head out the window more frequently and with less polite restraint. The baby lived.

In my opinion and in fact, the worst thing about skiing is the amount of preparation that has to be done before any enjoyment can take place. The time from stepping out of the car to first sliding down a ski slope must be over forty five minutes. I did some skiing and honestly I can't say that I can ski, it's more that I can balance myself well.

While I may lack technical skill, I make up for it in forward movement and staying out of everyone's way. This is more than can be said for the SnowPosers©. I understand that everyone has to start somewhere and that people have to stop and consult a friend about what the hell they are doing and this includes me but do eight of you need to sit chin-wagging and take up half the width of the slope in your neon pink/blue/lime/orange outfits? I realise that I am stepping into a minefield of skier vs snowboarder politics but these people are not even building up to a big jump or hard run, they are sitting on the beginner slopes that are populated mostly by children and idiots like me. If you're on your arse doing nothing for five minutes then you are posing and your pouting poser face gives you away.

A member of my girlfriend's family told me this true story: An American snowboarder was on TV and he said that in America, wearing fancy gear is a sign that you are an experienced and skilled snowboarder. The cool image has to be earned. So when he came to Japan he was surprised to see that everyone was wearing fancy gear and he thought, "Wow, there sure are a lot of good snowboarders here." But he soon realised that most people were just wearing the outfit and they weren't the real deal.

Perhaps that American went to the same ski resort as me.