Snowboarding anyone?

After the traumatic experience with skiing, I had to think twice before deciding to book myself for a snowboarding lesson. But then again, I'm in New Zealand now, I'm near the snow!! I don't want to go home with regret knowing that I haven't tried snowboarding, so I went to the only travel agent I know that organise a snowboarding package. Unlike Queenstown, where you can just go to any shop and book yourself for skiing or snowboarding trip, that kind of thing is not thriving in Christchurch. In fact, when I was wondering around in Christchurch central city, I saw no other travel agent organise a skiing/ snowboarding trip except the one that I go to. The only place I know and the closest one to Christchurch is Mt. Hutt, so I told the girl who booked my package that I want to go to Mount Hutt. The problem is, Mount Hutt was closed temporarily because of the bad weather. Ok, what to do now? The travel agent girl told me that I can go to another skiing area, Porter Heights. What is this place? I never heard of it. But, I had no choice, so I paid for everything and was told I had to be ready by 6.30 am for my pick up the next day.

The next morning, the shuttle came late, I had to wait 45 minutes for it. Come on....don't you think I have something more important to do...? Like getting extra sleep? Anyway, we're off to Porter Heights and it takes two hour to get there. This is not Queenstown where they can transport you to the mountain in half hour, but no prob!

Anyway, when I got there, the first thing I notice was, where are all the people? Coronet Peak was full of people, literally there were thousands there, and in Porter Heights, there were hardly any. Actually, I was a bit happy with that fact, because then not many people will see me making a fool of myself like I did when I was skiing. But the other not so fun fact was that this place looked abandon and not as high tech as Coronet Peak. No wonder it's cheaper to ski here. Coronet Peak has a huge restaurant and bar area and huge ski/ snowboard hire spot. The ski hire area here is as big as my living room and there is no changing room. Well, there's toilet but, come on....the floor was wet! It's cold in here, okay? Can I at least get a dry floor to get change? Anyway, I have to stop acting like a spoiled brat now, just focus on the fun ahead, ok?

Fun? I'll find out soon....

The tour guide was very helpful. He helped me tied my snowboard shoes (which is very tricky to do) and he even take care of my stuff and keep everything in the van. All I have to worry now is to find out whether snowboarding is better (or worse) than skiing. And when he asked me whether I've skied before and I said I sucked in skiing, he said the first time snowboarding is harder than skiing. Oh thanks, I came with no confidence and I've nothing left now!

After I put on all my gears (which is not an easy thing to do with my frozen hands; putting on three layer of pants, three layer of tops, not including the jacket, beanie, gloves and finally, my goggles), I made my way to the Lesson for skiing/ snowboarding meet here sign. Luckily, snowboard shoes are very comfortable. It's like wrapping your feet with pillow, unlike ski shoes that literally wanted to tear your feet and ankle apart. I got a few minutes to play around with my snowboard and when the instructor arrived, I felt ready. The wind didn't help though. Several times, it pinned me to the fence around the snowboarding area. Without those fences, I'll be sliding toward the cliff by now.

The instructor was super nice, compare to the one in Coronet Peak. She tried to remember all our names (there were 6 people in the group) and gave compliments if we can do the move correctly. Snowboarding is so much better than skiing, I totally enjoy the whole day. It was tiring and most of the time I had to pull my feet from the snow. Sometime the snow can get so deep up to my knees. I got more bruises today than I've ever got in my whole life, but who cares, as long as I have fun. The fact that not many people go to this place helped too. I can get more chance to get the lift to carry me up the hill. Too bad, I can't get many pictures taken. This one on the left was taken by stranger who was standing near the lesson area. I was hesitating to ask him to take the picture, but I don't want this moment to go without any picture. So there you go, it sucks actually having this picture because I want a picture when I was sliding down the hill, but hey....it's better than nothing.

I'll never forget this day, one day I'm coming back to do more snowboarding. One thing I learn, the place doesn't matter. The less the people, the better. This place is not as good as Coronet Peak, but I had more fun here!