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White Christmas

24th December 2002 - 26th December 2002

 


 

It was a white Christmas and it's the first time I have seen and felt snow too. =) There were 10 of us in 2 cars and we set off on Christmas Eve and arrived at a casino-hotel called Peppermill at Reno.

We started off on Christmas morning to Boreal ski resort to try out snowboarding. We had to wear many layers of clothes and also bought waterproof pants to cover our jeans... Nice weather and the sky was clear and it did not snow until the sky got dark.

I signed up for a beginner's snowboarding lesson while rest of the guys paid less and tried snowboarding themselves. My instructor taught us how to strap the board to our foot and how to walk up the slope with one foot stuck to the board and the other to climb up the slop, it was rather tiring man... Next was how to glide down a slope and how to turn. If you are boarding with your left foot forward, stand on your heels to move left, stand on your toes to move right. Then you will have to use this technique to make a turning stop which I fell almost all the time... =P

It was fun, but after quite a number of falls and crashes, my body started to ache on the next day, especially my left knee but it's okie now. =P And so, I did not try skiing... then only 7 of the guys stayed to ski while I went back earlier with Minghui and Ed...



Ed at the driver's seat. He's a Vietnamese American who is a friend of my seniors.
The 2 sleepy guys in the back seat with me, Akshay and Karthik

Drew a tortoise on the window. It's really cold out there...
Snow-capped mountains

Our hotel-cum-casino at Reno. Reno is a place quite similar to Las Vegas but only much smaller.
Getting off the cars to the hotel...

Christmas morning...
...a view from our hotel room

The mountains where we are going to snowboard
5 layers (including outer jacket), 3 layers of pants and 2 layers of socks. Fat man. =P

See the snow?
Rather crowded here, people are all coming to ski this Christmas

There are quite a couple of Koreans and Japanese too
Large pine trees on the slope

The ski lodge where we rent our big and heavy snowboarding shoes and snowboards
The ski lifts that take you up the slopes

Here's a lift that takes you all the way to the mountain top
There are ski/snowboarding lessons held at the lower slopes

Taking a break to eat warm food...
Me and my snowboard

Kae Fong
Karthik

It's cold sitting outside, why dun you guys move inside to sit huh?
Kae Fong on board

Me on the snowboard
View on the mountain peak. Me and Kae Fong went all the way to the peak and tried our way down. Really tough, cos' the slopes are really steep at some places and we had to slide a bit and purposely stop and rest, otherwise we will be sliding too fast and possibly lost control. Anyway, we made it to the bottom in one piece!

The peak is not for beginners like us! These people are the intermediate or advanced skiers and snowboarders
It's getting dark and it looks like a long way from the summit

It's dark around 6pm or so and snow is falling...
.... but there's still night skiing until 9pm.

The stairs up the ski lodge
Can you see the lamps in the center? The lights lit up the snow falling, actually you can't really see the snow in the dark, you will need to see it against the light. Somehow the camera captured the snow in this picture though.

Heading back to the our cars
The carpark was packed when we came but quite empty now, cos' people are leaving fast in case it snows too heavy for the roads

Warming up the cars and returning to our hotel