Austria Kitzbuhel Skiing Trip - Diary

Date: 2008.12.13- 2008.12.20
Location: Kitzbuhel, Austria
Accommodation: Hotel Hofer
Type: Skiing + Salzburg city visiting
Travellers: H. Teh, J. Chong, W. Chin, S. Lim, B. Lau, S. Lim
Cost: appoximately £600

13th Dec
Leaving Cheltenham in the early morning and the bus was delayed but luckily we were still able to catch the flight. Surprisingly there was in flight meals and it was good! We arrived in Salzburg Airport after 2 hour flight and met the Crystal Ski reps immediately. Got our stuff settled and went to the hotel by coach, which took us 1 hour and 15 mins. On the way, we realized that the lift pass was not included in the price (in which initially we thought the pay of £380 has already included everything!), and that could cost €143.50 for 5 days (but we didn't get it). That did spoil my holiday mood quite a bit. Anyways, the hotel looks good and the dinner was a 3-course meal!! Suprisingly, we were going to have 3-course dinner every night and we could choose the starter, main course and dessert from a few options! But initially we thought it costs to order drinks so we decided to get just skyjuice (But the next day a kind lady from the next table told us the wine was free, and in fact all the drinks were free). We all went out for a walk after the dinner, the lightings were really good, and you could see snow around... although it wasn't snowing... But we could always pick some snow and make the effect ourselves.. couldn't we? : P

14th Dec - Sunny
The breakfast was kind of plentiful - various kinds of cereal, milks, home made smoothies, juices, yoghurt, various types of bread, croissants, fruits, nutella/butter/honey etc, boiled eggs, wafer, hot options- beans, mushrooms, fried/scrambled eggs, hash browns, saussage, bacon (all served as buffet other than the hot options). First day of our skiing lessons, we went to get our skiing equipments- boots, pools and the skis at the Intersport shop (the 1 week locker to keep all our skiing stuff costs €19,20). Everyone couldn't really walk properly after wearing the ski boots, it's just like 打石膏 (encased in plaster).. in both legs! XD And the skis are really heavy! They were fit with our heights and weights. Next, we started our first lesson and met our coach- Hans Peter. The views at the hills were unbelievably beautiful!! It was a bit too sunny that I felt like I would have a heat stroke because we were all sweating and really thirsty.. -_-" (isn't it hilarious if you get heat stroke in the winter? haha..) and Kian's nose bled. Later we went up slighly higher of the hill with a rope and skiied down. It required a bit of skill to be brought by the rope too and I think Joce, Shinyee, Kian fell down by the rope, especially Shinyee had made a few of kids behind her fell with her, which is kind of funny view, you'd see a group of kids fell down together : P. I kept ski to the direction of the rope and crushed on others too but didnt cause any accident luckily.. haha. I realized skiing just wasn't that easy that I expected today but I did enjoy it very much although it's hard to control sometimes. In the afternoon, we attended the welcome meeting (This is no good afterall, we should have our welcome meeting at the first day of our trip ma...) and had afternoon tea. Got our 3 days lift passes as well (€91). Then we played cards and 见识了 Kian's cards washing machine. (kind of lebih la right? bringing the machine all the way to Austria.. : P) And I started to realize I came to this trip with 虚伪的一家人 (i.e. Jeff Kian Shinyee) because they're always pretending, no matter it's for good or not, later on in the trip we did realize it's indeed quite true. We played some games like bluff, big 2, 叫名字 (guess some of them played this game for the first time and we all enjoyed it quite much! hahaha...), 抽乌龟 etc after dinner. Those who lost had to eat half of a Rolo doughnut (you know the doughnuts were very nice one ley!! I don't know why we treated it as a punishment). Jeff ate 1.5 and Shinyee ate half if I'm not mistaken : P.

15th Dec - Sunny
Had the similar breakfast and still found it nice. Today we got the chance to get up to the mountain Hons by cable car (1650m). The views on the way were reallllllllly superb!!!!! seriously, they were all like fake ones, those on postcards or in pictures, and incredibly we saw them with our eyes!!! It makes us feel the trip is all worthwhile already! Then we tried the "seat" too, it's basically just seats with a few iron steaks but function like a cable car! A bit nervous before each of us get on it but we're all fine with it soon. A very nice experience for me. I feel everyone's improved a lot today, can control and turn ourselves (apart from Joce, don't know why la, she just kept going out of tracks.. ha, but she got better soon in the afternoon). It's really enjoyable. We learnt snow block to control the speed and also turning. Oh ya, and we like the magic carpet quite much, it's like those escalater in the airport, flat one, which could bring us up so that we wouldn't have to walk uphill (which is really energy and time consuming!). Then we moved to another side and they've got rope and a little plastic to bring us to the uphill. I was the third person to get on it and guess what, the first two infront of me (Bpeng and Joce) both fall. That scared me a bit but luckily the rest of us were all fine (although at the end everyone did fell at least once because of it and mine was kind of serious one XD). It's quite steep and it's really great to feel the speed, skiing on our own. Shinyee was skiing really speedily and made we all include the coach quite worried la.. Kian curi tulang, kept resting =/ whereas Jeff ski the most. Feel that everyone is really nice, reallly.. because whenever one of us fall, others will help whenever it is possible, or sometimes me (or any of us) can't wear the ski successfully, others will stop and offer a hand to either let me hold their shoulder or clean the snow under the boots for me.. Today I realized I've got really heartwarming travel friends. Appreciate that very much : ) I fell down twice today, both time also weren't skiing -_-" Legs were kind of pain at the end of the day, bruises and wound all around without any apparent reasons. We went for a walk at night, and were in search of the local christmas market but failed because it closed quite early (just like those in chel.). Walked around and spending lots time "watching" the shop windows, especially there was one interactive ice-skating decorate.. which caught our attractions everytime we passed by there.. lol (to see whether the fake persons skating in there fall down or not.. and of course, they didn't and will never fall.. XD)

16th Dec Sunny too!
The first bus was on 10a.m. so it was impossible to start the ski lesson at 9.30a.m., which was disappointing as we missed nearly 1 hour skiing time. Today we learnt the same things again but we skied at a more advanced hill. It's now more like skiing because we had a much longer distance to ski and practice our turns, to feel the speeds and also control it. Joce and Shinyee fell quite a few times and thus, they got the chance to eat ice kacang : P (by burying their face at the very soft snow). I fell down once and laying on the snow too. It was really, as Joce said, comfortable! but super damn difficult to stand back up la!! (actually those snow that we ski at, has already been 輾-ed so it's not that soft and easier to control for us..). Later we were down-graded and went back to the less advanced hill to ski. He didn't tell us why : ( : ( : ( Anyways, enjoyed the long distanced ski and the speed very much today; feel better with the ski boots today too but both legs bengkak : ( (Note: You shouldn't put any part of your skiing pants into your boots, they will hurt, I knew that from Kian after they hurt me for 2 days =/) Nice dinner, had salmon and apple tart, know what, the restaurant in the hotel made really good 饼皮, whatever pies, tarts, cakes they made, the 饼皮 is normally very delicious! We all chatted after dinner and got to know Shinyee better. Started by Kian (saying me and Joce have 躁郁症), we started keep saying 你有病.. and created many different kinds of diseases, 沾沾自喜病, 小队病, 一直讲人有病病 etc. LOL. And we started learning how Shinyee speaks in mandarin too.. 就日..可日... etc. Whenever we heard those, we focused on the words themselves and forgot what that person really said.. XD Apart from that, we have been saying "O..H", which is from Kian (after coming back, I found it difficult to change this habit edy =/). I wondered later whether Joce thinks we were all really childish la.. although she herself is quite childish also sometimes.. : P. After that we went to casino, (they allow people above 18 entering it) and they lost some euros, apart from Bpeng. For two nights I didn't have nice sleeps because... I think I can't really share a bedroom with others.. unless I get to sleep first.. Haha.. : P And, amusingly, some of us felt like we were skiing even when we're sleeping.. Is this the reason we all improving? XD

17th Dec foggy+snowing
We're getting a bit bored with the breakfast although I did try to make it more interesting and different in each day. It's reallllly foggy today and when we're on our way in the cable car, it's like we were all in heaven.. LOL, because we "crossed" the foggy layer and went above it, so basically we were unable to see anything down there and in the world of white. The views were reallllly superb. We practiced again at the more advanced hill and I guess everyone was better this time. After lunch (snicker bars for 5 of us and cereal bar for Joce everyday.. lol), we skiied down from the hill (the main hill we had been practicing all these days and normally we came down by the "seat")! Supposed to be enjoying because it's a longgg journey, but because of the super foggy views (visibility was something like 5 to 10 meters I guess) and some kept falling, it became a bit.. agitating. Then we practiced a while and another day lesson ended again. Time was really fast when we're skiing!! The afternoon tea today was flapjack, which was not nice.. at all. Too sticky and yet they don't stick together -_-". We played 积木 after that. Two rounds, Joce and Shinyee each lost once, they were supposed to eat the expired doughnuts (really a punishment this time) but didn't : P. Because the chef has every wednesdays off, 5 of us (jeff bpeng kian shinyee) went to a restaurant called "....", it was recommended by our rep Richard, although he never been to the restaurant, too -_-". The meals were good, a bit too salty though. The environment was good too, but the 檀香味很重 =/ As usual, we talked and made some fun, and this supposed to be 华语进步班 trip has become 华语退步班, especially due to Jeff and Kian XD. I was kind of happy because finally I met people who like to say "小明就哭了" like me : P (it was first created by Jacky Wu I think and I like to say it at home, ask Bpeng, she knows) Hahaha... It started snowing a little bit when we walked out from the restaurant, and getting heavier very slowly.. At night we settled money matters and play cards.

18th Dec snowing+damn cold
We skipped the skiing lesson today and joined a coach trip to Salzbury city (€33), which according to Jeff, is the 3rd most beautiful city in the world. Entered the Germany border on the way, too. Wow.. which means we all now have been to Germany as well.. hahaha! The Christmas market was really huge! and sell quality stuff. They had hot dog bread and Shinyee had tomato soup. We joined a one hour walking tour (which cost €8.50) around the city centre but I wasn't really paying attention.. Next, 5 of us (exclude Joce, she doesn't like musuem and wanted to walk around the Christmas market) visited the Salzburg Musuem, which costs only €4 for young people (under age of 26). It mainly focuses on Salzburg and Art, and it's kind of different from typical boring musuem, modern, interactive. But because we were running out of time, so didn't really look everything in details la.. It was snowing heavily and really cold!! We took some photos at the Mozart Circle before departing back to Kitzbuhel. Experienced the snow quite much today and like the feelings. But I don't think I'd like to stay in a city like that, because it's wet and slippery afterall, and could be quite inconvenient when you want to go out (just like raining la, but it's colder and comes in white colour... literally.. hahaha). Eh but, it's still important to stress that I still love snow kkk. We missed the afternoon tea. As usual, rest+ bath, dinner, play cards, watch CNN. We played the 叫名字 again.. and this time we didn't exchange names, but we had 水果, 明星名 and things in toilet. Shinyee lost the first round, I think that's because the mi hou tao (Kiwi) is too special for us and thus easier to remember. Then, guess what, first time shinyee wants to be called 叶子媚 XD XD XD!! Seriously couldn't stop laughing la that time..!! I can't even remember what the name she had after we laughed.. But of course, she lost again! : P Then we have toiletry, 清新剂,体香剂,清洁剂,洗手盆,水龙头,沐浴乳... At night, Joce and I talked a bit before we slept, for a very long time, I never had a roommate, never laying there chatting with anyone before I sleep..

19th Dec foggy+heavy snow
The last day of skiing. No hot option for the breakfast today, but there was porridge with berries. We walked to the cable car station easily, with the boots but we were all used to it now! : ) We got up to the hill. Initially we planned to practice skiing ourselves but due to the heavy snow and fog we ended up playing snow, building very little snowman and 猴子抢球 using the snowman's body XD. Really enjoyed it to the fullest playing the snow, and taking photos with them. And we realized building a snowman is not that easy as we thought! So we made only a little one. Love the snow sooo much!! great experience too : ) Then we started our last skiing lesson. After practicing a bit, we got the opportunity to ski down the the middle station..!!!!!! It's really a long and smooth distance to ski down at, under heavy snow. The first time when we reached we had our lunch there, and due to the fact that we were the first batch of guests of the restaurant of this season, each of us got a free glass of brandy. Then we went up by cable car and skiied down again, and that came to the end of our skiing lesson.. : ( We took pictures with the coach and few others 'coursemates'. It's worth mentioning there was an English man who joinned us at 2nd or 3rd day, named Mark, who wore a different looking ski pants, and skiied very slow normally. I don't really like him to be frank, because he likes to go first (follow the coach's track first because we normally ski in a line), but then he skiied really slow and didn't normally follow the coach's track! So at the last day we had 2 missions- 1 to touch his ski pants to see whether it's really a pair of ski pants (as they look like grey colour jeans) 2 to kick him down hill.. XD we passed our first mission, nearly all of us touched his pants kind of 光明正大-ly when taking photos with him, and realized they are really pairs of ski pants, just with a .. different looking.. XD Whereas we didn't conduct our 2nd mission, as he fell down himself.. hahahahaha... so.. 放他一马 : P (Actually there were many more interesting people throughout the trip, e.g. 黑小明/小小明, Jack, 笑容小姐, 牛小弟 etc) After saying goodbye and all that, Jeff went to uphill to get our shoes while we moved all the stuff down first (we didnt want to miss the bus), although we ended up walking back with the super heavy ski, boots and pools too : ( Anyway, I like the ending of the ski lessons very much, because we got to ski the long journey, and according to hans peter, he thought there'd be problems with the Malaysians as we skipped one day lesson, but we were all fine! : ) nice nice : ) We missed the afternoon tea again because we had to return all the skiing stuff that evening. (Note: In fact we're allowed to return the stuff at any intersport shop, but we didn't know that!! Mark told us later on) Luckily it's not like the first day, we could now walk with the ski boots like wearing skippers : P Then we went for the sleigh ride. Awwwww the horses were freaking smelly, I'd really wish if there were snow dogs : ( The trip wasn't really worth (it costs us €15) as we had been to most of the places and there was just a river, but not an ice lake as told. Anyway it's still a nice experience for me, we can always have fun on our own. We walked around at the main street and then went back to have a rest, bath, dinner, and stayed at the bar for a while, there was actually Wii available. And.. that's it, we went back to pack our stuff ready for check out 10a.m. tomorrow.

20th Dec
Had our last very delicious English/American breakfast. We checked out and went to have a walk in the town again after everyone'd done packing. Bought some postcards, sent them, bought some souvenirs (Mozart's balls, magnet to bring back home for my collection). Took some photos as well. There were quite some big and small cute dogs on the street, love the snow very much! snowy trees, snowy umbrella, snowy roofs, snowy streets... And I started missing the ski boots already! Then we went to have a drink and rest for a while in the McDonald's. Went back to the hotel, played cards. The bus was supposed to leave on 1520, but it was delayed again due the the bad weather (Now, I quite like Malaysia's weather : P). Our flight was delayed, supposed to be 6.45pm, initially was delayed to 7.35pm, then later after we checked in, it had become 8.35pm -_-" The in flight meal was nice, perhaps that's because we were all hungry.. : P the muffin was really quite chocolaty. I missed home (the one in M'sia) quite much when the plane arrived in the UK : (. Then! the luggage wasn't 'arriving' and they made announcement saying they're now short of stuff -_-" and so guess what.. we missed the last bus back the Chel. : ( : ( : ( and we had to wait till 6a.m. the next day for the first bus. Ruby helped us to look for cabs but failed.. thanks for the effort anyway : ) Then we played Big 2 again, Shinyee and Joce slept first. Something funny happened, which could have changed our impressions of shinyee.. Hahahahahaha..!! I can't really describe what it is, but a picture is worth a thousand words.. So.. Let's see later on la.. : P Then all of us but Bpeng, slept for a while and got on to the bus at 6a.m...

That's the end! Although it's obviously not a very good ending, but I still love the trip very much!! One of the most enjoyable and wonderful trip!! Thanks to Bpeng, Jeffrey, Kian, Jocelyn and Shinyee for being such nice travel partners too! : ) I'd like to go skiing with them again!! Overall, I'd say the trip's worth the money, the views were fantastic, the hotel was good, the meals were generally all quite good, the staff are friendly, their service is just good enough.. and last thing, the thing that i mentioned the most after I came back, is that - Skiing is one of the things you must do before you die!! a must!! trust me.. you'd love it : ) : )

P.S. Spent about 3 hours to finish this post, and I'm going to keep updating it, and probably write more about my feelings and thoughts about the trip later on; if any of you think I've left anything out, just let me know k : )