day 3: thursday 30th march 2006

yay! in spite of my sprained finger, we decided to go *snowboarding* in the rockies today!!!

so we borrowed gear and drove into sunshine village for what we hoped would be a snowboarding experience of our stay in canada.

it was definitely a snowboarding experience.

it was the *worst* snowboarding experience i had *ever* had.

but ok ok. i'm getting too far ahead of myself. the lift tickets are fucking expensive. more so than whistler. but i guess it *is* the rockies after all. and they have a nifty gondola.

which we took up to look-out mountain.



me in the gondola.

and ben.



ok. he looks unglam here coz i just wanted to capture the scenery from the gondola. it just so *happened* tt he was in the photo. wahaha.

another ben-taking-the-photo photo of us. this one's actually really nice too. :)



and another photo of us - third-party help tho. wahaha.



and my only glam photo on the board before we get into the action.



our first run is banff avenue. ben finds boarding a breeze coz he loves going fast, but i still lack tt level of confidence, so i keep on my toe-edge so as to maintain control and reduce speed whenever i go downwards. problem with this method, esp with the boards and bindings tt we rented, is coz i couldn't really feel my toe and heel-edges so weel with these boards, edging took even more effort than before.

as a result, i ended up sprawling in the snow with a *cramp* in my right calf.



and ben took a photo of tt. *sigh* how loser is tt? :(

but ok lah. at least i look relatively happy.

and then after finishing this run, we took the chair lift up to the green run.



close-up shot of me on the chair lift. ARGH are you scared yet?

anyway this is where the trouble started.

first off, i had a spectacular fall.

by spectacular, i mean i have never had a fall of this proportions before. i.e. with me literally flipping backwards, slamming on my head, and doing somersaults backwards down the slopes, landing another time on my neck and lower back, losing my gear, and ending up sprawling completely stunned on the slope.

now i know how it feels like for stuntpeople when things go wrong.

fuck.

took a lot of resolve to get back onto my feet and continue boarding.

and less than 5 min later, i'd gotten stuck at an upslope, and as i was walking towards ben who was waiting for me at the top of the slope, i realised tt i was dripping blood all over my gloves, jacket, pants and the snow.

turns out i'd cut my thumb, but because it was too cold for the blood to coagulate, it was just dripping all over the place. and while the cut itself was small, the effect was pretty scary. and i couldn't put on my glove coz the damn thing just refused to stop bleeding.

so ben have to board off to somewhere to get some medical attention for me, hike all the way back upslope (which was an admirable feat, coz it's fucking tiring to drag the snowboard with you, esp upslope), and then continue on the run from there.

and then i'd realised tt my right bindings were completely spoilt - i.e. the binding on my boot was torn out. i think i'd probably torn it with my spectacular fall. but it also meant tt if i had trouble with my edges before, this trouble would be multipled even further coz of the bindings.

so thus ended my snowboarding experience in the rockies.

sigh.

but ben def had a better time. here's him boarding down banff avenue a second time.



and at the end of it. wah so glam. ;)



we had an early dinner, and then it was back to the hotel to watch more cable. but i guess because i was so despaired and upset with myself, ben decided to indulge me. so we shared yet another pint of haagen daz ice-cream over yet another episode of csi. wahaha. :)

oh. and in line of indulging me, with a whole lot of whining i got ben to agree to let me take yet another *super* unglam photo of him sprawled over the couch... if "over" can be the operative word here.



muahaha.

ice-cream and indulgence makes izzy a happier girl.