Snowboarding

I went snowboarding with a friend two weekends ago and enjoyed it so much that we went back for round two this past weekend. Both times, we met at the bus station at 6:00 on Saturday to catch a bus to a little town called Jangpyeong. From there we caught a shuttle bus to arrive at the Phoenix Park ski hill at around 8:30. Many of the Koreans at work were shocked to hear that I would be going snowboarding so late in the year and doubted that the hill would be open. Thankfully I guess this is general Korean sentiment and as a result there was barely anybody there and there were no lines to get on the chair lifts. The hill/mountain is nothing too spectacular but it is the second best ski hill in Korea so it was not all that horrendous either. I would say it is somewhere between Table Mountain (Sasky ski hill) and Lake Louise but a lot closer to Table Mountain. It may even be a part of the 2014 Winter Olympics, if Korea's bid is successful.

Me in front of a Korean igloo - you bet its 110% fiberglass

The snow was also pretty decent and the first time we went there was a big snowfall in the afternoon. Visibility was about 2 feet in front of your face which made the trip to the bottom a bit of a crapshoot. The friend I was with had only gone snowboarding twice before so every run was a bit of a crapshoot for him :) The blowing snow reminded me of blizzards at home so it was kind of nice in a way.

Blowing snow at the top of the hill

The first time we went we caught a different direct/"Express" bus back to Seoul. Turned out the express bus wasnt so express, and it ended up taking us over 3 hours to get back. The second time around we were smarted and opted to use the regular bus/shuttle combination. As we were heading back to Jangpyeong bus terminal on the shuttle bus, both Daniel and I fell asleep on the bus. I woke up when we stopped and looked out the window and saw a familiar sign so I woke him up and we hurried off the bus. We soon realized that this did not look familiar at all. We asked the way to Jangpyeong from some local kids and we started walking, figuring that it couldnt be far. After walking for 15 minutes we started discussing how we were in trouble because the bus to Seoul would be leaving soon. Just then, we saw a police station with about 6 officers outside. We went over and asked the way to Jangpyeong and they said "Taxi". One of them spoke English so Daniel said "Well you have all these cars here couldnt you just take us there? Our bus leaves in 5 minutes." So the Korean police officers cleaned out their car and 3 of them escorted us to the Jangpyeong Bus Terminal in style. It was lucky too because it was a full 5 minutes away and we just barely made it on to our bus.

Trip to Namhae Island

I went on a tour with a couple of friends to the very south part of Korea this past weekend. It was a tour organized for foreigners so their was about 45 others on the trip - Canada, USA, Brits and South Africans. We left at 8am on Saturday and it is about a 5 hour bus ride down to Namhae Island.

The bridge leading to the island

The scenery in the southern part of the country is much nicer than up here. There is some bigger mountains and once you get to the island, the views of the ocean are beautiful. The destination of the trip was Darangee Village. A village with about 150 people living in it (mostly elderly). All the young people in the town have moved to the city for better opportunities. It sort of reminds me of what is going on in small town Saskatchewan these days.

Darangee Village

We stayed in homestays, with an elderly Korean couple. The ajumma cooked our meals, which were very traditional Korean. Everything was pretty nice but lets just say I didn't eat a whole lot. Our woman was so cute. Even though she didn't speak a word of English we managed to get most things across. You could tell she did not have the easiest life but she was so happy and always smiling.

Shortly after getting to the island, we hiked up to the top of one of the two mountains that the village is sandwiched between. At the top of the mountain they have a stone platform which was used to light to a fire in and served as a signal that an enemy (likely Japan) was approaching. It looked just like a similiar mechanism in Lord of the Rings for those who have seen it.

The fire alert at the top

View from the top

At night we had a relay race, tug or war and Korean wrestling competition. There was also a big bonfire fuelled partly by wood and mostly by gasoline.


After breakfast the next morning, we left the village for another village nearby. We were the first foreign tourists to ever go this place so they were all excited to have us there. We were split into groups and took off from the island in small fishing boats. Not too far from shore there were a whole bunch of buoys. We pulled up the buoys to which a rope was attached. Further down were a whole bunch of small canisters which were open on end. As the adjushi reeled in the rope and the canisters, the adjumma would check each one to see if there was anything inside. After many canisters she placed one in front of me and told me to pound it with a rubber hammer. I did so so several times and eventually a squirmy little octopus popped out of the other end. It was sort of a surprise because we didn't even know what we were supposed to be catching.

The boats

After catching the octopus, we threw most of them into a live well in the bottom of the boat. One or two however were kept up top so that we could sample eating them alive. I bit off an arm which was very weird since even after you bite off an arm, the tentacles keep sucking on to any surface they touch and the whole thing keeps moving. Even on the way down my throat, I could tell the tentacles had attached to my esophagus and the thing took a while to go all the way down. It tasted just like seawater so wasn't too bad.

Yum!!!

We went back to the village, had lunch and returned to Seoul. Unfortunately it was raining so we missed out on the traditional ox farming demonstration that was supposed to be a part of the trip. All in all it was a great trip!