Hello again! The second day of my stay in Saitama has drawn to a close. I woke up in the morning in a very good mood and went to breakfast. To tell the truth, once again I didn’t find anything substantial to eat. So I chewed some lettuce, drank coffee and ate a hand-made yoghurt which I prepared by adding muesli and jam to a plain insipid yoghurt. After breakfast I fetched my belongings from my room and went to practice. It took me about 20 minutes to get to the rink. No sooner had I entered the building than I understood that it would be very hot on the ice. And indeed it was rather stuffy there. Another thing that impressed me was the huge stands, which most likely were going to be packed next day. On making the first round on the ice I understood that its size was rather small. The ice itself was much softer than that in Novogorsk. On the whole, my first practice went off well, but when I was leaving the ice I was dripping wet. After a half-an-hour break I was to come to the ice again to take part in the rehearsal of the opening and closing ceremonies of the show. Frankly speaking, the process dragged on for too long, and by the end of it everybody’s feet were numb in their skates.
Fortunately, the organizers had mercy on us and let us go. By the way, among the people invited to take part in the gala were the famous skaters Takeshi Honda and Shizuka Arakawa. What a beauty she is! She looks gorgeous and she is in a perfect shape. At the rehearsal we learned that Sarah wouldn’t be able to compete because of the pain in her ankle-joint she was feeling when doing difficult jumps. She was substituted by Liza and thus our team became almost entirely Russian.
The rehearsal ended late, so having returned to the hotel everybody went to their rooms to have a rest. Tomorrow is going to be a very hard day, because we’ll have to compete in the morning and to participate in the gala in the evening. So I’ve decided to go to bed early to save as much strength as possible. I hope you’ll like my images in the new programs. Cheer for our team!
