Yongpyeong

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Sat 19th: Up at the crack of dawn, oh the joys! Hopped on the bus to Seoul, had a lovely hot bagel for breakfast and then onto the bus to Yongpyeong. The journey was a few hours and a bit boring. We had a couple of rest stops. We stopped at the rental shop to get our boots, skis, snowboards, and clothing. That was carnage, so many people trying to get sorted, asnd that was just our group, didn't help with the Koreans trying to push in. Finally sorted we got back on the bus and drove a bit further to the resort.

At the resort we all got sorted with our lift passes and headed off to the slopes. We had to walk for about 5 minutes and that left me knackered. Walking in ski boots, while carrying skis and poles is some serious exercise. We spent the afternoon skiing. It was lovely. I'd been to Phoenix Park a few years ago, but after just one afternoon, I've got to say I prefer Yongpyeong. It's bigger, there are more rus, and the queues for the lifts aren't as bad. It was great to ski again, and I hadn't forgotten how to do it. It's just like riding a bike. We had a good three hours skiing and before getting on the bus we stopped at the shop and bought some booze and snacks for later.

Our pension was a ten minute drive from the resort. It was really nice. We were in rooms of six and I scored the bottom bunk, although I think the floor might of been better as the room was cold when we first got into it. The pension was in the middle of nowhere and there was only mountains and snow all around. It was beautiful and hard to imagine that I was still in Korea. Dinner was cheeseburgers, chicken nuggets, and goldfish crackers. Urgh! Costco burgers, there were some nasty hard lumps in mine. While the others went night skiing, I stayed at the hostel, having a few beers, and chatting to some of the others, who had stayed behind, too. The hostel had a nice communal kitchen dining area, but it was freezing even with the fire going. Spent a couple of hours there, before heading to bed, and having a shower to try and warm up a bit.

Sun 20th: Definitely not the greatest night's sleep. When the night skiers came back they had a massive party that lasted for hours. Cheers for that! Some of us actually want to get up early in the morning and ski then. Grr, rant over. Anyway, I got up around half seven and breakfast was ready at eight. A lovely breakfast burrito and some coffee sticks. Coffee sticks are evil, but I needed all the caffiene and sugar I could get that morning. Then it was onto the bus. It's a pain in the arse, not staying in the resort itself as you have to get the bus back and forth. Phoenix Park was better in the fact that we stayed at the youth hostel at the bottom of the slopes meaning we could ski right up to the door.

So at about 8:30 we got back onto the bus. There was only 4 of us doing the morning skiing session, everyone else was sleeping off their hangovers. We had to go back to the rental shop and pay them for the lift passes and our skis and clothing hire. That was a bit of a fanny on and took longer than we hoped. We also upgraded our lift passes to include the gondola for an extra 8,000 won. Then it was back on the bus for the short drive to Yongpyeong resort.

I don't know why we had to pay at the rental shop for the lift tickets because we then had to go and exchange the piece of paper that they gave us for our real lift pass. Bit of a waste of time, but I think it was a bit cheaper. We then took the gondola to the top of the mountain. It was beautiful at the top, you could see for miles and miles. It was a bit foggy though. We took the really nice easy run all the way back to the bottom of the slope and then took the gondola back up. We got talking to a lass on the gondola, who had a season pass, as she lived quite close to the resort. So jealous, it would be lovely to come whenever you wanted. We spent the next couple of hours skiing on the black runs, they weren't too bad. Black runs in Korea are a bit easier than black runs in Europe. Then we took the nice long easy run back down to the bottom.

We got back on the bus just before half twelve and we left the resort at half twelve. We went back to the pension to pick up all the others and then we headed back to Seoul. We were meant to stop at a restaurant for lunch, but as the Special Olympics were going on there was no space anywhere. I was happy about this as I just wanted to get back home now the skiing had finished. The journey was quite a long one. We got stuck in bad traffic as we were leaving Yongpyeong. The bus also stalled in a tunnel. It was funny at the time, but I'm glad we only stalled and didn't break down. We had a 40 minute break at a service station on the highway. 40 minutes really, it's a bit too long. Then we were on our merry way again. The traffic wasn't as bad after we left the service station and we got back to Seoul around half 5 ish I think. Thanks to the bus driver not having a clue where he was going we ended up on one of the main streets in Gangnam, and a few of us were able to jump out there, as it was more convenient to catch our buses home.

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