Snowboarding at Phoenix Park, Korea

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My friend Christine and I decided to go snowboarding for the day at a nearby resort called Phoenix Park. Some of her friends had season passes and so we could get 30% off the lift tickets and the rentals. Might as well since I had nothing else to do. We caught the bus at 6 am in Bupyeong for the 2.5 hour, 6,000W bus ride to the resort. It wa nice because we were able to pass out on the bus and woke up just in time for the arrival and to meet her friends. Thankfully one of the people in the group was Korean and made the process of getting lift tickets that much easier.



Once purchased we went through the hassle of filling out the paperwork, standing in line to get our boards and boots, then finally getting everything on and hitting the slopes. It sounds easy on paper but the whole process of trying to get everything and everyone together took a good hour if not hour and a half. Finally we made it outside to the lifts. Overall it was pretty crowded but the lines went pretty fast and before you know it we were on top of the mountain. I was impressed by the length of the runs. I thought it was going to be a simple up and down run where you finished in a minute or 2 but surprisingly they were pretty long and took a decent amount of time to make it down. The snow was pretty wet from having the temps rise that weekend which caused the snow to 'grab' your board a little bit and when you are on rental boards....you know what is going to happen.

We hit a couple runs and then ended up grabbing some lunch at the cafeteria. Of course we stopped for lunch at exactly noon when everyone else on the slopes was eating and opted out of the cafeteria line since it was out the door and we were starving and not really wanting to wait in line so we headed upstairs to eat some delicious Lotteria. Lotteria is basically a smaller chain McDonald's. Not bad but not good.

After lunch we hit a couple more runs and found some small, very small jumps to hit. Nothing that impressive but something to add some fun to each run. I hit a jump that looked pretty good and before I hit it I saw one of our friends below it about to film me hitting it. So I thought "Sweet, here we go!" Well, it was really soft snow on the landing and I basically landed and tomahawked and landed the tomahawk and looked at him and he said that he had done the exact same thing.

Overall it was a great day to get out and enjoy the slopes. The resort itself was pretty neat but it had a weird vibe to it. All of the hotels and stores were made of gray metal with no balconies or anything so it had this industrial feel and didn't have that 'mountain' feel that I'm sure used to. In Colorado, all the slopeside houses and resort hotels resemble mountain cottages and cabins and blend in with the mountains itself. That is probably the one thing that I didn't like about Phoenix Park. You guys will be able to check it out in a couple years when the 2018 Winter Olympics come to that area. I think all the events are spread out over 2 or 3 of the big resorts there.

After catching the bus back home I rented a movie from iTunes (my only source of English visual stimuli) and passed out. It was a very long, successful day!

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Photos

Phoenix Park
Christine and I getting ready to hit the slopes!

Gondola ride
The group heading up in the gondola.

Group shot
Group shot at Phoenix Park