Well the Farewell banquet was a lot of fun. All of the athletes and coaches from all of the various countries were there and we had a chance to mingle and say goodbye until next year. The food and entertainment were fantastic and I promise to put up photos tomorrow morning. The big news of the night was the Chris Devlin-Young won the Super G globe (World Cup Champion) and was third in the overall standing for GS and Super Combined as well. I believe he ended up 4th in the Overall too (all events combined). It was a great season for Chris! Adam Hall (NZL) was third in the slalom overall standings so we were all psyched for him as well since he is an adopted part of our team (he trains in Winter Park, CO).

We had to have all of our luggage in the tuning room by 10pm. Then we loaded it onto a cargo truck at 7am this morning after breakfast and more farewells to the other teams. We loaded our bus around 830 am and arrived and were checked in to our airport hotel around 230pm so it was a long bus ride. It was nice to travel during the day this time though so we could check out the beautiful Japanese landscape. We shared a bus with the German team again along with the New Zealand team (a team of 2 athletes and one coach) and the Slovakians.

Once we arrived in our hotel we quickly brought our carry-ons and overnight bags to our rooms and then meet in the lobby for a team trip into Tokyo. We all stayed together and first took the shuttle to the airport. Then we rode the train to Tokyo station, transfered to another train before piling out and rushing to the Tokyo tower. We went up the tower and had a great view of the entire city. It was beautiful and we ran into the 2 Austrian physios, which was fun. The 2 wheelchair athletes that came on our adventure had some challenges in that they had to go up and down stairs but everyone helped them to the amazement of the Japanese people witnessing it and it was fun. The problem was the last train back left at 812pm so we had to rush and ended up getting dinner at a convenience store to tide us over until we got back to the hotel.

Tomorrow we leave at 525pm so we have the morning off and will meet at 100pm to get onto the airport shuttle and go collect our luggage and check in as early as possible to ensure all of it comes home with us since we only have 2 days at home prior to heading to Idaho for Nationals at Soldier Mountain.

I will post one photo for now, of Chris Devlin-Young with his hardware. More to come in the morning. Update here are more photos from closing ceremonies: Chris’ Super G medal, Adam Hall on the overall slalom podium, Team Australia, the grade school drummers, and FISH…the Japanese national food