It's winter in Korea

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Hello everyone,
I wasn't gonna write until I got to Japan as life is basically routine at this point: work, train, eat, sleep, fun on weekends... However, last weekend, a great opportunity presented itself. Claire (another SFU alumni, the original to come here) got invited to go riding with a Korean guy and his snowboard instructor buddies. They extended the invitation to the rugby crew so 6 of us girls headed out to Vivaldi Park on Saturday afternoon after rugby practice. I was not in charge of the organisation so I had no expectations, only jitters as I was excited to get a first day of skiing under my belt.
The way there was a blur with taxi rides, food gathering stopovers and running to make the bus as we were quite late. Luckily, Claire's friend Joon (spelling?) was there waiting with all of our tickets. Fun guy, maybe a little too keen to practice his English. The bus ride was about an hour and a half and I slept most of the way as I was tired from a girls' night of hangin' and chattin' on Friday.
We arrived at the resort in late afternoon and suddenly it was winter! Well, sort of. It was cold like winter but there wasn't a drop of snow on the ground, uhm... I could see a few slopes packed with people, that's it, should be interesting. We got picked up at the bus stop by this Korean guy (Young something) who spoke no English and drove a huge white pimp car/truck. Off to our quarters for the night. The deal 15,000 won (almost 20$) for food and accomodation. A one-room apartment with more snowboard jackets than anything else. 4 Korean guys (only 1 who spoke fluent English), 6 girls, no furniture... should be an interesting night! All I have to say is floor heating is the best invention ever.
It turns out the pimp car owner is a mean cook so we sat on the warm floor, ate(and I mean yummy dish after yummy dish...) and played drinking games all night. They also had another apartment like the first one so some of us got to sleep. Quite the Korean experience. On Saturday morning, we woke up to snow on the ground, I was in heaven! Now to the skiing. There was only 5 runs open but one black run with a decent slope and a lot of needed fresh air. My friends were quite inexperienced so I mostly skied by myself and with the Korean guys. The resort was very Asian: hundreds of people everywhere, good use of space with a chairlift over the parking lot and even a giant screen at the bottom of the slopes. Have a look at the pictures for a better explanation. GOOD TIMES!!!
It had snowed in the city as well so we came back to white and cold, awsome! It was winter for a few days but now most of the snow has melted and it is back to somewhat warm. At least it's still sunny. Winters here are much better than in Vancouver.

Now a couple of random things. Kids are so funny. Am I a bad person to laugh at them, often at innapropriate times? Like today, the 7 year-olds were practicing for their Christmas presentation tomorrow. They were so bad, I couldn't help myself. They were pretending to give something to their parents in when this one girl wacked her head on the corner of a mini-playground. I broke the silence with my laughing, oups...This other little girl was not making an effort so the owner pulled her off the stage, she was pulling away from him and somehow ended up flying across the room on her bum. I guess you had to be there but I was laughing my ass off.

Anyways, I better go, pictures are worth a thousand words. I will write again from Japan.
XXX Merry ChristmasXXX

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Photos

Skiing
The resort: the people and yes, a giant tv screen in the background.

Stylin
I am all style and I got mean, rippin', rental skis!

Stylin
But the best part of the outfit is... I appear to have forgotten goggles so I ended up skiing with my bling sunglasses.

Skiing
Good use of space, very Asian.

Pimp car
It was quite scary navigating the windy road while the driver was showing us pictures on his screen in the car. I took a cab once and the driver was watching a soap on tv, scary!

Koreans
It appears that Koreans will fall asleep anywhere and everywhere! Including the dining area of Burger King at the bottom of the slopes. It needed to be shown.

Apartment
The floor, the jackets, Mieke and a Korean guy.

Comments

[Annie]

Love the pics!
At least it's winter somewhere, it doesn't look like we will get a white one here. I am really enjoying your stories...love the pimped up car! Gotta get me one of those, I can see myself, watching soap driving down the QEW!! Miss you lots, have a good time in Japan! Annie :)

[Hilary]

Let me quote: "my friends were quite inexperienced..." Well to clear things up. SOME of your friends are quite inexperienced but you forgot to mention that I am a boarding SUPA STAR! Did I look like I was going as fast as I felt I was going down that REALLY steep bunny hill??