Happy Lunar New Year!

This past weekend was Lunar New Year and to celebrate it Tom, Richard, Trey and I signed up for an Adventure Korea Tour, which is a tour site organized for foreigners. Departure time was 8am from Seoul on Saturday morning, which meant we had to head up to Seoul on Friday night. We finished work, grabbed our luggage and headed to the train station. We hadn't made plans for where we were going to stay Friday night, our plan of action was to find the closest possible place to where the trip left so we could sleep as late as possible on Saturday morning. We ended up in Hongik area which is where we had spent New Years Eve and we couldn't find a love motel anywhere (which is just a really cheap, seedy hotel that would have sufficed for one night). We decided to go an even cheaper route and checked into a jjimjjabong. It was a really nice one and for seven dollars we got our sleeping wear provided, use of the saunas, hot tubs, use of the gym, dvd rooms, singing rooms, you name it, it was there... we were also provided with a floor mat and a room that was occupied by at least 100 other sleeping (and snoring) Koreans. A few hours later of restless sleep and my alarm was going off and it was time to start our tour.

The first day of the trip was in Pyeongchang, which is the city that is bidding on the 2014 Olympic games and we were at Pheonix Park, which is where the ski events will be held for the Olympics if they happen to win the bid. They won't. Anyhow the skiing was great, the weather was beautiful and there were tons of hills to choose from. After a couple of runs Trey and I were separated from Tom and Richard and we decided to explore some more of the slopes. Now the last time we went skiing was Trey's first time and he was a comical act to watch and was told a few times by ski patrol that he was "very dangerous skiier," but this time it was like he had been doing it his entire life and he managed to show me up after the first few runs down the hill. After going up one ski lift we saw that it was connected to a second lift that went way way up. Trey was up for it, and ever the follower, I tagged along. We reached the top and there were 4 different hill options. Most of them I couldn't see over the peak because they were so steep that had I been closer to the edge I surely would have tumbled down at warp speed. Trey picked one and off he went. The irrational side of my brain said, if Trey can do it, I can do it. So off I went. I wasn't doing too badly at the insanely steep mountain, as I was going as slow as possible from one side to the other. Then I fell. And because the hill was so steep I had a terrible time getting my ski back on and ski patrol tried to help but even they were having problems. What seemed like ages later, I was up and made it down the rest of the hill without killing myself or anybody else. Trey was sitting at the bottom, waiting and laughing, as he had already had a slice of pizza and a smoke in the time it took me to make it down. Soon after that it was time for dinner and we met back up with Tom and Richard. Night skiing was fairly uneventful, Trey and Tom went off to conquer the pro hills and I putzed about on the more relaxing hills.

After skiing we went up to our room, which was in a youth hostel and we were sharing it with four others. Two of them were a nice couple from Ottawa and they spent the night drinking with us and talking. After a bottle of wine and a few beers I was done for and went to sleep.

The next day we were off to another area a few hours away which was supposed to be cottage like and the most beautiful area of Korea. It wasn't that special but it was nice enough. We had a pension room that we shared with the Ottawa couple. There was a bbq dinner of samgyupsal and a bonfire, which they lit by stacking several pieces of wood, dousing it with a can of gasoline, while smoking a cigarette, and then taking a blow torch to it. Miracuously enough, nobody was hurt. After dinner we sat around the fire with the others on the trip, talking and laughing. By then it was getting kind of cold so we went and did noraebang for a few hours, which is the singing room, and then back to the fire around midnight. Finally we ended back in our room around one or so and we sat around talking for a few more hours before falling asleep.

We were supposed to go on a hike the next morning but when the tour guide started pounding on our door at 7:30 we decided to bail; they really should have had the physically enduring stuff before the night of drinking and debauchery. We left the cottage at two in the afternoon and started a long bus ride back to Seoul and then a train ride back to Daejeon.

All in all it was a great weekend, something a little different from the ordinary and a chance to mix with new people. It was a little expensive for what we got out of it but I would do it again. Unfortunately even though it was a three day weekend it still passed by just as fast as any other and now I have to head back to work today. Boo. Oh well, four day weeks are still better than five day ones!