My Most Epic Jan 1st
“あけましておめでとう、Happy New Year, Selamat Tahun Baru”
I spent my Jan 1st usually with my close friends or my family. Since it’s impossible to do that this year, I decided to join a ski trip. First of all, the fact that I decided to go skiing for my new year is already “out of this world”. But, this story is not about that trip. No… there’s a series of unexpected events that happened that day. It’s a series of “right time at the right place” moments. You’ll understand it soon. I can easily say that this… is the most epic Jan 1st I’ve ever been.
Starting off with me, queueing for the ski lift. I decided to take 1 more lap before I had to return the gears. Just about the time I enter, suddenly all the phones are ringing. There was an earthquake. It’s a 7.4 Richter scale near 石川 (Ishikawa) prefecture. An Australian dude in front of me is still in denial *lol, he thought the ski lift machine was causing the tremor. The ski lift stops, and I can see people hanging on their way up to the slope. Because of the situation, the night ski is canceled which gonna led to another series of events down the line. This is the first “right time at the right place” moment. Imagine if I managed to get into the ski lift. I could be left hanging for quite some time and I could be late in returning the gears which gonna cost me some money. Or worse, imagine the earthquake happened when I was sliding down the slope. A noob skiing in a middle of a land tremor? That’s a guaranteed fall.
The story continues. So because of the earthquake, I managed to return the gears earlier and return to my inn. In which I bumped into this gentleman that we befriended with a couple of days ago. Let’s call him Mr. S. He just got back from his run and we share stories about the sudden earthquake. We were talking when suddenly a chat message came in. Unfortunately, one of my friends has been left stranded at the train station because of the delayed service amidst the earthquake. This gentleman, Mr. S, kindly offers to help us by picking up my friend using his car. As Indonesians 😂, we don’t want to be bothersome, let alone asking a man to drive 2 hours round-trip just to pick up a stranger he just met. But this man… is so humble and convinces us that it would be okay and we’re not bothering him. Moreover, he said if my friend still waiting for the train, he might end up arriving at 10 PM and there’s a high chance that there will be no bus either. So we ended up accepting his offer. On our way to pick up my friend, Mr. S and I talk a lot about our experience. I must say… he LIVED a very interesting life 🤣 Long story short, we picked up my friend. He got his train station stamp for the 121st time-ish. Then we go back to the inn. This is the second “right time at the right place” moment. I happened to be at the right place with Mr. S when the chat message came, resulting in this gentleman offering us some help. I can’t thank him enough for his help that day.
The night doesn’t end there. As soon as we arrived at the inn, my friend and I were hanging out in the shared room area where I had my dinner. Not long after, the owner of the inn came in and had a casual chat with us. We’ve talked about that we’re from Indonesia, we’re working in Japan now, bla bla bla. Suddenly, the owner brought out a topic regarding his family. He said, “Do you guys know Hitachi?”. We were like, “Of course we do”. Then he replied with, “Do you guys know the excavator company, under Hitachi? Yeah… my grandfather is the president.”. Casually. My friend and I were like, “WTF (of course we didn’t say this out loud). Who are you, mister?”. I mean what are the odds, right? We were in 白馬 (Hakuba), in a random inn that my friend chose, and turns out… the owner… is the grandchild of the president of Hitachi’s branch company (?). The third “right time at the right place” moment. If we’re not hanging out in the shared room area that night, we might not know this detail until we check out.
But! The surprise keeps ramping up. Remember I mentioned that the night ski is canceled? Two of my friends who were supposed to go night skiing just came back to the inn. They just came back from a free drink invitation. Sounds good, right? No! Turns out, the free drink invitation is a setup, they just got back from a “Christianity persuasion” drinking activity 🤣 At first, they thought it was just a friendly invitation to grab a drink with a stranger they met in the street. But later on, the people who invited them started talking about the holy spirit and the story of their conversion to Christianity. My friends told me how they tried to avert the topics, but the “missionaries” were always able to bring the topic back to the “you should be a Christian” topic — which is hilarious. They ended up receiving a CD with a playlist of Christian songs in it. For me, it’s a funny story. Who would have guessed that the cancelation of the night ski would lead to a “Christianity persuasion” session… while drinking… in the middle of nowhere *lol. My friends happen to be at the “right time at the right place” where they bumped into these Korean “missionaries” 😂 I think they will forever cherish this memory. This is the fourth, and the last one.
And that’s the story of how I spent the most epic January 1st of my life. How bout yours?
