And as the kids say these days “and just like that”, or “how did that happen?” the instructing season was over for us both 😭
The last couple of weeks seemed to be on fast forward !
Maybe it was because in early February there had been 2 sets of 2 days, about 3 days apart that had reached as hot as + 10c !! And then 1 night of RAIN ! This had convinced us that the season was over, but then it went back to the normal -10c and snowed a few days… all the pistes recovered to the point where on our last day they were superb again.
So maybe this resurgence in weather was why we were so surprised to be teaching our last 2 lessons on 27th Feb. And, as a quirk of fate, we both had female students of Fillipino origin in the morning (more on that later). Then Pete had a guy on his 2nd ever day of skiing in the afternoon and progressed him enough that they did some blue runs off the second chairlift!!! So, it was a great way to finish teaching 👏
The FISS bosses organised and paid for the team to go bowling 🎳 🙌 that was good fun & banter, followed by the karaoke booth till around midnight !!!!! Aka SeaCat legs walk home 😁😁
Then the next day it was staff training in the morning, ran by Craig our level 4 qualified instructor. It was the brightest blue bird day of the season and he was improving our carving and off piste, occasionally by carving at high speed into the off piste bumps 💩💩👀
The first time Craig demo’d this, I (pete) was suddenly promoted to the front of the line to go next as a few people wanted to syc themselves up – so I was the guinea pig !!! As it goes, I didn’t crash and it was pretty fun 🤟 certainly learned about bump absorption……
We covered the whole mountain and everyone really enjoyed the last team ski.
After lunch in the staff room a few of us drove over to the New Prince side of the resort as they had a Gentemstick (creme de la creme of Japanese boards) snowboard demo day. Nat, a colleague this season, and Greg and Masaki last season owned the Manta Ray board and they had all raved about it so much we were keen to see if it matched the hype.
We didn’t have much time so the 5 of us ripped down the mountain twice, it’s a pretty damn good board. Janet noticed the biggest difference as her snowboard is the oldest.
Then we quickly changed the bindings over to a proper powder board with a short fish tail. Sadly, there was not much powder to be found in the time left, but we nipped into a small pocket and could feel how much better it was. Then the biggest test of all, having the balls to ride it switch, the fishtail looks like it’ll just dig in and make you crash, but it a actually rides ok. Obvs not a deal breaker for a powder board but good to know you could teach on it and sneak for a lunchtime POW lap if you had to.
All in a pretty damn good last day on snow 😎
We’d already had a night out at the Fondue 🫕 place as a joint leaving doo with Hiromi a few nights before, food was as good as last time.
So for our last night, a few of us wandered to The Furano Bar for a farewell beer, that turned into us all ordering pasta, then into a few nightcaps at Andy & Jane’s apartment next door to ours. 🥰
Janet also managed to sneak in a lake dip with Gideon on the last day, I’m not sure it was ideal acclimatisation for the tropical waters, so I left them to it 🥶😱🥶
Then it was up and away to start the next adventure travelling around the Philippines 🇵🇭 😎 for 3 weeks.
