Page 24 - RADC Bulletin 2019

ADVENTUROUS TRAINING
Ex Frosted Kukri 19
Maj Stuart Porter RADC
As an avid skier, skiing in Japan has always been on my bucket list due to the stories of its legendary deep champagne powder, and when I was lucky enough
to be posted to Brunei with my family I thought this could be a great opportunity to tick it off my list.
There had been one previous Skiing
AT Exped to Japan in 2016 and I believe
our editor, Maj Rene Cheema, was lucky enough to get on it. Unfortunately when I arrived in Brunei in late Jul 2018 there were currently no plans for Skiing AT to Japan. I thought this won’t do and so started making enquiries into the possibilities of organising one for the coming 2019 season. So a Business Case was put forward and before
I knew it I was off to Japan with my Practice Manager, Cpl Madan Limbu and 16 others for 10 days of Japanese skiing and culture.
We flew via Singapore and landed at Haneda Airport, Tokyo, then we got a
bus transfer to Hakuba, which is widely known as the Japanese Alps. From here our accommodation host picked us up
and we got ourselves settled in after the long journey. We were really lucky with the location of our accommodation, which had an amazing view of the Hakuba Mountains. After admiring the view and the snow monkeys running around in the forest below
it was time to head into town to pick up
our ski hire and plan for the first day on
the slopes. The next day the SF1 Group, which was our beginner group, headed
off nervously for their very first day on the nursery slopes. The SF2 Group, which is intermediate standard, headed off for the blue and red slopes. After the first day there were a lot of smiling faces in the SF2 Group and a lot of tired faces in the SF1 Group. However, as the week progressed the SF1 Group, which included Cpl Madan Limbu, became more and more confident on the slopes and were soon going from snow ploughs to parallel turns within a few days which was great to see. The SF2 Group moved off piste to improve their ski touring skills and to carry out avalanche training. At the end of each day the team had a vote on who deserved the 80s one piece ski suits for the best mess up of the day which would range from leaving ski poles on the bus, to the most cinematic crash. Once the training had been completed, exercise participants then had their test day, which I am pleased to say everybody passed. All in all the whole week’s skiing was extremely fun but hard work and was aimed at pushing exercise participants out of their comfort zones, but was thoroughly enjoyed by all.
With the skiing completed it was time
to head back to Tokyo for our cultural day and what better way to do it than on one of the famous Shinkansen Bullet Trains which travel up to 200mph. Once in Tokyo we made our way to our hotel, which of course had to be a capsule hotel giving everyone the full Japanese cultural experience. After checking into our “spacious” hotel rooms everybody headed out to enjoy what weird and wonderful delights Tokyo had to offer, such as a city tour on Mario Karts, the Samurai Museum, Robot Cafe, Hedgehog Cafe (yes there is such a thing), Shibuya Crossing etc. I also managed to catch up with my good friend Lt Col Woodward Court who just happened to be on holiday in Tokyo with his family, what are the chances? After a fun day of experiencing Japanese culture
it was finally time to head back to sunny Brunei.
As the exped leader the whole exercise was a lot of work, but was well worth the time and effort as not only did I get to experience skiing in Japan, but 17 others got to come along and enjoy it with me. So if you fancy doing some AT, put your head above the parapet, speak to your CoC and get out there and do it. You’ll learn a lot, probably get a qualification out of it and make some good memories and friends along the way.
22 RADC BULLETIN 2019