Simply told

The other day the giant kerosene heaters were blasting like jet engines and the air in the gymnasium was filled with that heady smell. All of the students were arranged in class groups, sat on chairs, for the rehearsal of Fridays graduation ceremony. The rehearsal was mostly singing, although they also practised standing, sitting and bowing deeply in unison.

I grew bored quickly. Kasuya-sensei was nearby and we talked. I told her about Mondays exploits.

Max and I had driven up to Zao and near the car park got trapped behind a JCB that ploughed snow from the road to the side of the road. Big boulders of packed snow flaked off the bank at the side and tumbled back into the road as the JCB ploughed on. Just as we approached a T-junction (where the JCB would turn left and we would right), one of the passengers in the cabin turned and looked back at us across his shoulders. We recognized the car park attendant that we deal with each weekend, who sometimes crouches watching the car park entrance when he's not directing vehicles. He smiled at us a little strangely.

We parked, exchanged season tickets for lift passes and climbed aboard the first gondola. It'd carried down about a dozen passengers. At the gondola station half-way up the mountain, we encountered more skiiers and snow-boarders queuing for the very same gondola we'd taken up to ferry them down. We took a chairlift up further, that ran along a corridor of trees. Nobody else was on the chairlift. The seats in front swung from side to side before disappearing into the white gloom two pillars ahead and the wind howled and whistled on the other side of the corridor of trees.

These are the particulars of How We Faced Zao on Zao's Terms.

At the top of the chair, the wind hit us. Although it scoured snow from from the sloping bank ahead of us, it replaced snow in dunes on the path that would usually lead to the piste. Instead of skating leisurely along this path, we stepped like scuba divers on dry land. With each step we raised our legs high and with each footfall our skis plunged deep into the dunes of snow. The wind bracketed our ears and thoughts and the loneliness of the arctic explorer rushed into relief.
A little way ahead we discerned a figure in the white gloom. His steps were measured, consistent, efficient to our clumsy, stuttering and laboured progress. As we approached nearer we read 'Zao Ski Patrol' on the rear of his backpack, written in English. Eventually we drew level and shouted greetings at one another, above the roar of the wind. He asked a question to which Max replied, 'ENGLAND!', in Japanese. Soon after, the ski patrol man disappeared into a log cabin that'd lurched suddenly out of the gloom. In my mind I rolled over the question he'd asked Max again and again, as you would a boiled sweet in your mouth. Finally, I cracked it. 'Doko made iku'n desu ka' he'd asked. 'ENGLAND!', Max had replied. The ski patrol man didn't ask where we were from.

'WHERE ARE YOU GOING?' the ski patrol man had asked.
'ENGLAND!'

Kauya-sensei burst out laughing.