1.26.09

1.26.2010

Last weekend I went skiing and it was an experience. I went with 2 friends, HyunHee and another friend named Bell (his Korean name translates to this, and I couldn't remember his Korean name). Bell had a car so we rode together and were stuck in stop-n-go traffic for almost 2 hours. To top it off, Bell apparently was cold-blooded. We would ride for awhile and he had the heat on high the entire time. I was sitting there sweating and eventually he would open the sunroof for about 2 minutes and it would be comfortable but then when he closed it the heat went right back on. You may be thinking, "why didn't you open the window" but this wasn't possible because he just had them tinted and they couldn't be opened for 2 days. I was pulling my pant legs up, taking off my hat, unzipping my coat, and whatever else I could think of to cool off a bit but apparently he never noticed because it lasted the whole trip. This was supposed to be a 40 minute trip but there was a traffic jam due to construction from the point we got on the highway until we got off. One highlight of the ride was buying a squid on the highway while in traffic. There were people in between the lanes of traffic during the jam selling dried squid and oranges to motorists. We eventually made it and went to a ski rental shop outside of the resort to rent skis and I snow pants for me. I have never heard of renting coats, gloves, and snow pants but it is possible in Korea. We were told that the resort was packed and that we wouldn't be able to ski too much. We said okay but still wanted to go so we went to the hills. We bought our ticket for 12:30 - 4:30 and the hills/mountains were actually pretty big and it was really good. We got out to the slopes about 1:00 and had to go to the learning hill first because HyunHee is not a good skier. I have never seen so many people at a ski place, (see Exhibit A below). We got in line with a couple hundred other people all trying to get to the lift but in Korea there really isn't anything that resembles a line. People come into the line from all directions and people cut all the way up to the very end. We stood in this line for almost an hour waiting for our first chairlift. We got up to the top and started to go down, turns out that what I thought "not very good" was much different than what the Koreans considered to be not good. Bell wasn't bad but HyunHee would go back and forth down the hill almost directly sideways with a stop each time before turning around to go back the other way. I would go down, stop, look up the hill and wait, she would catch up to me and talk, then we would start the process all over again. It took probably 20 minutes to get down the hill which could have been ridden in about a minute. I hadn't skied in about 2 years but it's safe to say that I was one of the top skiers on the slope that day. I am not a great skier but skiing here was crazy. People go down a short distance, fall, and then congregate until they decide to attempt the hill once again. The hills are filled with people stopped and talking. I would bet that the majority of people on the hill are not moving. It was really a crazy sight. The people would repeatedly fall I had a ton of time to watch because I was constantly waiting for the other people skiing with me. After our first lift we decide to head to the bigger hill with a 6-man lift. This lift wasn't nearly as bad and we waited about 10 minutes for this one but the hill was longer and it took that much longer for our group to get down. Needless to say, we ended up going up 3 chair lifts in 4 hours of skiing and then had time to eat before heading home. Bell ended up coming home dizzy because he fell and hit his head and Hyunhee said that she had bruises covering her legs and arms the following day. Ha, I don't really know what else there is to say about this trip but the it was really fun and I hope to go again sometime and get the chance to go down a few more hills. They actually have night skiing here, which is midnight-4 AM and that is hopefully going to be the next adventure and I would like to think that it would be much less busy. No other stories here and nothing else really on the horizon but who knows.

Exhibit A



Kevin

PS - I forgot my camera cord in MI and am waiting for it in the mail but hopefully I will soon have new pictures up from the past few weeks