downhill skiing

We’ve had a lot of bitter cold weather recently (-43 degrees Celsius! 😲) and it’s been getting me down… it’s too cold to go for a walk outside and just thinking of winter activities makes me want to hibernate. 😖 The only winter “activity” I’ll be doing for now is sipping a hot cup of milk tea and watching the snowflakes lazily fall outside. ❄️ 

Hmmm… Reminiscing the winter activities that I’ve experienced is also another option. So far, I’ve experienced snowboarding, skating, and winter hiking. As I was going through old files, I happened to come across my downhill and cross-country skiing photos. 

I had the opportunity to try downhill skiing on a company trip to Table Mountain several years ago. I decided to skip the skiing lesson this time since my snowboarding lesson on a previous trip didn’t go that well; I’m a visual learner, their instructions don’t really help me.

I struggled a bit (Jellybean was no help from his snowboard 😝) and Allan — one of the company executives — noticed and gave me a very helpful tip… that is to remember the “pizza” and “fries” moves. The “pizza” move is used to slow down or stop like an amber or red traffic light. It’s mostly called pizza because the ski position looks like a slice of pizza. While the “fries” move represents green light… green means go… go…go! 🤣 The ski are parallel to each other and looks like fries. 😝

On the bunny hill where the beginners flock together, there’s a conveyor that takes you to the top; on the big hill, they use a chairlift to reach the top. Since I’m a complete newbie, I stayed on the bunny hill.

Going down the bunny hill was a bit nerve wracking at first but the thrill kept me going. My confidence slowly built up as I climbed up and glided down the hill a number of times. Though, still not confident enough to try the big hill as I was still mostly using the ever trusty “pizza” move. 😳

To my surprise, I enjoyed skiing more than snowboarding. I find snowboarding stressful while skiing is more relaxing. It’s probably because I was skiing on a little hill with a “safe” slope. The next step is to  join the big kids on the big hill and then aim to sail down the scary slopes of Sunshine Village  someday… Fat chance! 🤣

Stay tuned for the next post on cross-country skiing… ✌