I've never been skiing before. Its something that has been suggested to me on quite a few occaisions but I've never had the time/inclination to learn how to do it. Before coming to China I had decided it was about time to have a try and was prepared to have a few lessons at the local indoor centre in Castleford. Lessons there are about £70 a session, so when Xuan announced that Shanghai had an indoor centre where you could ski all day for £20, including ski and clothes hire I thought it would be worth a go just to see if I could at least stand up on the boody things.
Carsten, Xuan and I all decided to to have a go. Both Carsten and Xuan are experience Skiers. Xuan has been skiing since he was little and Carsten grew up in the German/Swiss Mountains (i think) so has always skied. They said they'd give me any tuition i needed. Sods law dictates that the day we decide to go and play in the snow indoors actually turns out to be the hottest day of our tenure here by some distance - an absolutely stunning afternoon. The centre was about an hour from where we lived - all the way at the end of my metro line and from the outside it looked like a former communist building.
On the inside the decor was slightly more up to date but the clothing or equipment supplied was still a decade or so behind - please see Carsten's lovely pink suit! The slopes weren't as much snow, more tiny grains of ice but it was soft and didn't hurt too much when you fell over (as I did quite often), however as it was ice you did get quite wet and cold. The slope was 400 odd metres long but not that steep so quite good for learners. The first thing that my tutors tried to teach me was how to stop - a "snow plough" they called it - i was useless at this. I couldn't get the hang of moving the front of you skis in and pushing the backs out. Just couldn't manage it so we quickly moved on - I mean, who needs to stop anyway?!
Despite not being able to stop I made my way down from the top of the slope. Xuan and Carsten just told me to throw myself over if I needed to stop - I didn't really have much choice on this and found myself on the floor quite a few times. It is quite difficult to get up with skis on though so thought I'd better improve quickly. Luckily there were hatfuls of chinese people who in comparison made me look like a granstand competent skier! I sooned realised that skiing was like motorcycling that you just need to keep your head up and look at where you want to be going - as soon as you look down you fall over. I managed to have one run from top of the summit to the bottom without falling over and turning at the bottom in order to stop. The feeling when your going so fast is quite amazing - but quite scary at the same time. I'm not sure if the others will want to go again as this place was for begginners really but I'd definitely like to try again - although it will be a while before I join my friends on the piste.
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