Travel isn’t always smooth sailing – I have a ton of hilarious stories of mishaps that happen to me on the road, like accidentally killing birds in New Zealand or trying to find a place to change my tampon on a boat with no toilet in Manado. This particular anecdote is from a family trip to Hokkaido, Japan where I had to get rescued from a ski slope.
We were holidaying at Rusutsu Ski Resort in Hokkaido and had a lovely little log cabin on the ski slopes. This was the first time I had been skiing in a very, very long time. Keep in mind that I’m from Singapore and snow is a big novelty for us – I wasn’t one of those who grew up skiing regularly.
Still, I managed well enough, but I was pretty much a novice. One day when the weather was fine, we decided to take the gondola up to the top of Mount Isola to check out the view.
The only problem we realized when we reached the top was that for some reason, the gondolas only went in one direction – so what goes up doesn’t always go back down, and the only way down was to ski!
My sister was a much better skier than me – I spent a very painful 100m or so just falling down no matter how slowly I was going. Falling while skiing is extremely tiring, and the cold weather doesn’t make it any easier. I was also becoming a hazard to the skiers around me, and after enough trying I had to give up and ask nearby snow patrol for help. They picked me up on the snowmobile and gave me a list all the way down to the bottom of the slope.
Skiing is painful business and can be dangerous if you don’t take care of yourself. I was seriously aching by the end of it all. Also, I managed to wipe out and hit my head so hard on a bit of ice that my ski goggles strap snapped and I had a headache the rest of the day.
But still, it hasn’t stopped me from doing more skiing. I had a chance to visit Gangwon in South Korea during winter, and on my Career Break I spent 3 days near Vancouver skiing, and even tried some night skiing.
Tell me about your biggest travel mishap, they do make for great stories in the aftermath :)