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.