Rusutsu

I spent a couple of days this week in Rusutsu, Hokkaido, for the Brain and Mind workshop, and came back only yesterday. The workshop itself was good, just like last year, with some fun presentations and several interesting posters.

Rusutsu is a ski resort with excellent slopes and lots of snow, and many people attend in part for the opportunity to ski during off hours. I didn't ski at all last year but I was determined not to miss out this time. Now, I did a lot of skiing as a child, but I haven't actually stood on a pair of skis for twenty years. Some caution was clearly in order.

So I decided to try snowboarding, for the first time in my life.

Rusutsu snowboarders. Note: Picture from last year - I have a backlog of pictures to develop and scan, and I wanted to get this post out while fresh.

I rented equipment - board, boots, clothes, the whole kit - and signed up for a two-hour lesson. Lessons are in groups of 1-8 people, and I was lucky to be the only student in my early-afternoon time slot.

First, snowboarding is easier than it looks. I had never even touched a snowboard before; the lesson began with how to wear the boots properly. But by the end of the first hour I'd already been up the chair lift twice and could ski down an easy slope all by myself. It helps that I have skiing experience of course, but it was mostly thanks to a very good teacher. Taking lessons really is much, much better than trying to learn things all on your own. Had I tried to learn by myself I'd have gotten nowhere (except, possibly, a hospital).

The hardest part, surprisingly, was to move about on flat ground or at the top of the hill with one foot free. I kept tripping over my feet, had the board catch in the snow, flailed about and generally made a fool of myself. Finding my balance and learning to turn down the slope was actually easier.

Also, snowboarding hurts. At least, beginning snowboarding hurts. I've used muscles I've forgotten I had, and while the deep, fluffy snow in Rusutsu is soft, my backside still took a beating with the frequent falls. It was worst right at first, before I'd gotten used to the board, and I spent a lot of energy fighting against it. Once I began to understand the basics I could relax a bit. But my legs were completely exhausted by the end of the lesson (we cut it a bit short, actually, as I could barely stand up anymore) and my entire body was hurting yesterday - the next day. Sitting down for the morning seminars was painful, and getting up for the coffee break was even worse. When going to work this morning my arms and hands hurt whenever I tried to lift my bag.

But it was fun. It was, in fact, amazingly fun. More fun than I remember skiing to be and more fun than any other sport I've tried. If I hadn't been hobbling around like a rheumatic pensioner the next day I might have skipped a presentation or two and gone back to the slopes again. There's a a small ski slope in Rokko mountain north of Kobe; I'll have to see if we could go there someday. This is way too much fun not to do again.

Rusutsu: Hokkaido Redux

In mid-January, barely back from our christmas vacation, I was back in Hokkaido again, this time for a three-day neuroscience workshop. It's a yearly event, held at Rusutsu ski resort west of Sapporo. It's in the middle of nowhere, but it's easy to get there by bus directly from Chitose airport.

Rusutsu resort hotel. The green-clothed skiers are a high-school tour group, enrolled in a snowboard class. There were lots of school and university student groups staying at the hotel. Unlike working people, students can take time off mid-week for skiing, and they're price-sensitive travellers so cheaper weekday skiing probably appeals to them for that reason too, I guess.

It may sound a little strange to schedule a workshop at a resort hotel, but it's not a bad idea at all. They have a lot of experience handling large travel groups and have very good group discounts; they have much more and cheaper space than cramped city hotels so there's plenty of room for presentations, poster sessions and demonstrations; and they're well provided with restaurants, pubs, shops and the like so people don't need to venture away - and split up - for food or drinks. Most of their business is on weekends, so hosting conferences and tour groups is a good way to fill up rooms during the week.

Rusutsu is a full-service resort. There's a dozen restaurants, cafés, various shops (both souvenirs and actual useful stuff like ski-wear), convenience stores, a bathhouse and swimming pool, conference rooms, playground, equipment rental and ski schools and so on. It's actually two mountains and two hotels, with a cable car and a monorail connecting them. I didn't check the slope maps but the system looks to be fairly extensive and the slopes seemed very well prepared from what I saw.

The cabin main room, at 2:30 in the morning, and some of the students were having a party. Of course, it being graduate students, the talk was mostly about the day's presentations and each other's research.

Our accommodation (I stayed at a log cabin with a dozen other people rather than a hotel room) was breakfast and dinner included; for dinner you got a meal ticket you could use for a dinner course at any restaurant. We had washoku the first night and chinese the second, and both courses were extensive and enjoyable. We only had one hour scheduled for dinner, however, which was too short for these slow-paced meals - we had to skip dessert the first night so we didn't miss the speaker.

There was some time set aside for skiing, but I passed this time. It's still business travel, ski slopes or not, and I had plenty of work to focus on, especially as it was my first time at this workshop. Also, I haven't actually stood on a pair of skis for over twenty years; I'd really hate to miss half the workshop on account of having my leg set and put in a cast. If I return next year, however, I'd love to take a half-day snowboarding course. Never done that, and it looks like fun.

Rusutsu is a summer resort as well, with golf courses, and a large amusement park. The park is completely snowed over in winter but to me that just makes it more interesting. I couldn't get far into the park itself due to the snow; next time I'll rent snow shoes.

Instead, I took some time for a walk and a few pictures. I couldn't get very far with all the snow, but there's still a fair amount of interesting scenery near the hotel. I only brought the Pentax 67 with me, which forces you to slow down and think things through before pressing the shutter. You only have ten images on a roll. The film was Ektar 100, a very fine-detail film with good colour, but as it's fairly slow you're pretty much forced to rely on a tripod for everything but daytime outdoor shots.

The amusement park is pretty large. They have the shrewd idea of buying up the better attractions of closed amusement parks rather than having original - expensive - designs. If you like rides, this is probably a very good place to come in summer.

I love this kind of still winter dusk, when the light is fading and colors are muted. There's no wind and not a sound to stir the moment.

Main hall, New Chitose airport south of Sapporo. This kind of public decoration I like. It's thematically right for the place, and I enjoy the whimsy of taking a child-like design, blow it up to full size and display as if it really could work. It hangs opposite a Da Vinci flying machine-style design; an interesting contrast in imagination, though of course neither would ultimately be able to fly in reality.