Snowboarding at Crystal Mountain

There aren't a lot of places to snowboard in Taiwan, and usually people Taiwanese people will go to Japan if they want to ski or snowboard.  In Washington, we have a lot of mountains.  If the weather is cold and snowy, you can sometimes ski after winter!

Yesterday, I went snowboarding with my friend Bryce.  It was a lot of fun, and I want to share this experience (經驗) with you!

The mountains where you can snowboard are very far from my house, so you have to drive for about two hours if you want to get to them.  On snowboarding days, I have to get up at 6 am so I can get to the mountain early enough.  If you wait too long, there will be long lines of people and you'll have to wait, so you can't be lazy!

This is Bryce's car.  During winter you need to have a strong car that can drive through lots of snow.  If you don't, then you will have to find a friend who has one!

If you park (停車) far away, you might not want to walk!  That's why cars will come to pick you up and let you out where you can buy tickets.

Ok, I bought my tickets and I'm ready to go.  Wait.  Who is that?

Let's get a closer look.

Sunday was Easter, so the Easter Bunny showed up and gave out chocolate!

My friend Bryce helped carry my snowboard while I was taking pictures.

We took a gondola (纜車) up to the top...

...but this is what we rode to get back up the mountain after snowboarding down:

It can be a little scary to ride on these, because they go up very high, and you are just hanging in the air!  Don't worry, after you do it a few times it isn't so scary anymore.  I hate high places, and even I'm ok with it.

It's been three years since I snowboarded.  How did I do?

Well, I did a lot of this:

...and a lot of this:

...and when I got too tired I did some of this too:

Boy, snowboarding is a lot of work!  

You can't give up just because you keep falling.  Just get back up and keep trying!

I still remember how to snowboard!  Yay!

While I was doing stuff like that, my friend Bryce was jumping billions of feet into the air:

He flew so high into the sky that he needed help coming back down.  We had to get a genie to wish him back to the ground.

At 2:00 pm I was so tired that I couldn't snowboard anymore, so we put our things in Bryce's truck and drove away.  

Snowboarding is a hard sport to learn, but if you work hard and try out new things, then you can have a lot of fun.  Bryce likes to call snowboarding "The Sport of Kings".  What do you guys think?  Does it look like an awesome sport?

Well, you DO get to look at nature:

If you love looking at trees, mountains, and snow, then snowboarding might be the sport for you!

One last thing.  Did you guys notice the orange jacket I wore over my black jacket?  

That's a "safety vest".  It's never a bad thing to be safe.  Sunlight bounces off the yellow parts and makes you easier to see.  If you get lost, or you fall into snow, people will be able to find you without spending too much time.  Remember-

-Safety first!