| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
| |
|
29 December 2002-3 January 2003
by Winnie So
Everything you?e ever heard about Aspen is true. It is glamourous (star-spotting is probably the second sport here, and the amount of fur and silicon on display is a real eye-opener). The slopes are great, as are the restaurants. Prices can be astronomical, especially during the peak weeks between Christmas and New Year. And there? so much more to Aspen than just skiing or boarding. The problem is: Do you have enough time and energy to do everything?
Arrival -- 29 December 2002
Touching down at the small Aspen airport, two things immediately struck me: the number of private jets parked on the tarmac and the warm weather. Inside the terminal, members of our group spotted Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell. Aspen was already proving true to its reputation for being the North American ski resort of choice for the world? super rich and famous. We were neither, just a group of spectators and keen skiers and boarders.
Within 15 minutes of getting our luggage, the Sky Hotel SUV had arrived to pick us up from the airport. Sky Hotel? location is one of the best, surpassed only by The Little Nell, which is next door. One can ski right to the hotel after a day conquering the slopes of Ajax. In the morning, the gondola is just a minute? walk away.
Sky is a Kimpton boutique hotel. The apres-ski crowd in the packed 39 degrees bar-restaurant was young, fashionable and very furry. Aspen is definitely one town in the US that seemed untouched by anti-fur activists. Aspen is also a town of silicon, the type you find inside women. For people-watching, this ski resort beats all others.
The rooms were very spacious, but somewhat lacking in skier amenities such as shoe racks to place wet, slushy shoes, closet space to hang regular clothes, hanging space in the bathroom to air ski clothes etc. The bathroom, while large, was not of the standard of a boutique hotel. There was only a single washbasin with no counter space. There was no separate shower and bath, and the shower pressure was rather pathetic. The rest of the room, however, was very comfortable and warm.
Welcome dinner was at Matsuhisa (part of Nobu Matsuhisa? global empire of Peruvian-Japanese restaurants). My friend Mami, an Aspen regular had introduced me to her friend Nobuko Kang, owner of the restaurant. When Nobuko saw our disappointment over the fact that there was no uni left, she promised to ring Nobu in LA and have him ship some over in time for our New Year? Eve dinner. Despite there being no uni, dinner was fabulous. We had some signature Nobu dishes like seared toro sushi, jalapeno and hamachi, salmon tartare and caviar. Matsuhisa was packed, people were still arriving for dinner at 10pm. Nobuko invited us to the Prada cocktail, but we decided to head back to the hotel for an early night in preparation for what was to come. As we walked out the door, it was snowing!
First day snowboarding! -- 30 December 2002
A beautiful day blue-sky day, with 5 inches of fresh powder snow on the slopes. Woke up at 7:15am, headed upstairs for the buffet breakfast. The food and coffee was luke warm and at US$17.95, a bit pricey. But I managed to put together a great bagel with salmon, roasted potatoes and onions with bacon and cream cheese. The perfect ski breakfast loaded with fat for warmth and carbohydrates for energy. The dollar pancakes were great as well.
By 9am, the rest of the group had met up with their private ski instructors to explore the terrain on Ajax, a thoroughly beginner-unfriendly mountain; as it has no green runs. I was scheduled for a 10am group snowboard lesson, my first on snow. By 8:45am, I was panicking because I had not pre-booked my equipment and after calling six stores, all were out of women? size 7.5 or 8 boots. By 9am, I decided to just go try whatever was available and boarded the bus for Snowmass. At the shop, just as I was about to settle for boots that were half a size too small, I spotted someone returning boots my size and quickly grabbed them. After putting on knee pads, wrist guards, helmet, gloves, I headed to the ski school meeting area for my very first snowboard lesson.
It could not have been a more perfect day! The weather was beautiful. I spent most of the day in just a cotton turtleneck and fleece. By the end of the day, I had nailed both toe-side and heel-side turns!
Dinner was at Mezzaluna, a great Italian and pizza restaurant. Again, it was packed to the hilt. Food was great; as was the price. It came down to just US$20 a head, a bargain for Aspen. Conversation revolved around L? ski instructor, who happened to get a table next to us. He had given L the gossip on celebrities in Aspen as they went up and down Ajax. Apparently, he had gone out with Jill St John (now married to Robert Wagner) back in his youth.
New Year? Eve -- 31 December 2002
Another beautiful day in Snowmass. Had a pretty easy day on the slopes, progressing to another green run (from Ashley Hill to Fanny Hill). I soaked in a hot bath while several other members of the group went for their pre-booked apres-ski massages, where they put heated mitts on your hands and feet, at the Aspen Club & Spa. Dinner was at Matsuhisa at 9:30pm. We toasted the New Year with uni shooters, flown in fresh from LA as Nobuko had promised. Dinner was a set menu with toro, lobster, kobe beef, assorted sushi and other dishes done in Nobu? signature style.
We spent the early hours of 2003 watching Sex and the City. HBO was having a Season Four marathon. We didn? make to the end of the season though.
Shopping! -- 1 January 2003
Had a late start for the first day of the new year. Headed over to The Little Nell for breakfast. L had a delicious Eggs Benedict with truffle hollandaise sauce, while I had lemon souffl?pancakes with raspberry sauce. After several mornings of bland coffee, I was happy to have a decent latte.
Decided to skip my third group snowboarding lesson in favour of some shopping in Aspen. There is some great shopping to be done if you?e got tons of money to spend. There are fur, jewellery and watch shops as well as the usual luxury fashion brands such as Bulgari, Louis Vuitton, Malo, Loro Piano, Gucci, etc. The best, however, was the Prada shop. The interior was not the usual de rigeur Prada interior. Prada had restored an old building, keeping its stone and timber interiors. The basement had a working fireplace with fur rugs. Very cosy and chic. Although there were some sales on, there were no real bargains to be found, except perhaps in The Gap and Banana Republic.
Dinner at Renaissance was disappointing. After reading all the rave reviews and hearing friends recommend the restaurant, I was very disappointed when I nearly got into an ugly argument with the waiter who refused to see that he had served us winter squash bisque instead of mushroom consomme. For an award-winning restaurant, I would have expected the waiters to at least be able to distinguish a bisque from a consomme, let alone know what each item on the menu looks like before they serve it. The food was good, when they finally did get it right. And chef-owner Charles Dale actually offered to give us a ride back to our hotel when he saw we had been waiting for the hotel car for 15 minutes.
Back to Skis! -- 2 January 2003
After two days snowboarding and one day off, I was itching to get back on skis. Met up with the instructor at 9am and headed up Ajax. The skiers on Ajax are some of the best and most well-mannered skiers I?e seen. There were no out-of-control skiers or boarders on the slopes. People who overtook would shout ?n your left?or ?n your right?before they whizzed by.
The other great thing about skiing on Ajax is that there are no lift lines. This was the peak week of peak season and still there were no lines! And there were no crowds on the mountain. It was absolute paradise on the slopes. Snowmass, on the other hand, was much more crowded, even though it? a much bigger mountain, at least twice the size of Ajax. Favourite run of the day was down Ruthie? to Spring Pitch (a rather easy black), to Strapile to Summer (a bit of flat) and then down Little Nell.
After nearly a week of fine dining, we had begun to crave junk food. So for dinner, we gave up a reservation at Campo de Fiori for Boogie? Diner. This meal, in retrospect, is my favourite meal: macaroni and cheese (the kind that? made out of a box), onion rings, buffalo wings, fried chicken and my favourite coffee malt shake. Brings back fond childhood memories. Boogie? is great fun and the food is pure comfort food. It? the perfect finish for a hard day of skiing.
Last Day -- 3 January 2003
Last day of skiing. The day started out with bright, blue skies, then clouded over for most of the day and finally cleared for the last couple hours of skiing. A great finish. On one of the chairlifts up Ajax, our instructor spotted Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffiths in the chair in front of us. We didn? really believe him until we got off and skied past them, their three young children and their two ski instructors. Their kids were so incredibly cute. On the slopes, they just seemed like any other family on a ski holiday.
The last run of the day and of the trip couldn? have been more perfect. There was hardly a soul most of the way down and there were no crowds at the bottom. Near the bottom, we took a sharp right and landed right where we had started the day, outside the hotel ski racks.
We finished off the week of great food with dinner at Cache Cache, a packed and trendy restaurant serving French bistro food. I had an excellent warm frisee, bacon and goat cheese salad followed by pan fried foie gras with wine-poached pears.
The next morning we left Aspen on an 8:35am flight back to Hong Kong via San Francisco. Looking back, Aspen is a great resort for the most serious skiers and boarders to non-skiers alike. There? plenty to do. Most of the time, we were still jet-lagged or trying to stave off a full-blown cold to do everything? There were so many other things I would have loved to have done while in Aspen: go to one of the wine tastings and chef? dinners at the Aspen Cooking School, take a yoga or pilates class at O2, go for the horse-drawn sleigh ride to dinner at Pinecreek Cookhouse, ski the other mountains, see a bit more of the nightlife at Syzygy, J-Bar, even at 39 degrees in our own hotel. Alas, we only had five days! But there? always next time. I now understand why Aspen attracts such a loyal crowd that comes back year after year. Simply put, Aspen has it all. |
|
| |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
