About a month ago, my friends and I decided that a ski trip in Korea was 100% necessary. Lucky for us, there are more than a few good resorts within a short distance from Seoul. We decided on YongPyong Ski Resort, which is about a 3 hour drive from Seoul without traffic. It is a huge resort with a couple hotels, a hostel, two lodges with restaurants/stores/rentals, a waterpark, a spa, and of course, ski hills. I did not grow up skiing, but from my perspective this was a pretty nice place. To top it all off, we picked a weekend that overlapped with the 29th YongPyong International Ski Festival. It could not have worked out better.
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Chair lift pic!
Quinn and I had that Friday off from school, so we ended up hopping on a 9am shuttle bus that took us directly from Seoul to the resort. We arrived around lunch time, ate some food, checked into the hostel, and started exploring. I think it is amazing that a ski resort has a hostel, making it so there is affordable accomadation for young people like me. But, people of all ages were staying there as I believe the hotels and condominiums would run you a couple hundred for the night. We landed in a 15-person ondol. An "ondol" is a room with a heated floor that you place mats on top of to sleep on. There was also a TV and one window, but were talking very basic accomadations. But, for the price, you can't beat it and we were all happy to have one big slumber party together. It surprisingly is a great sleep as the floor keeps you nice and toasty and your back is well supported. Below is a picture of the room:
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After putting our stuff down, Quinn and I headed to check out the rental situation. Quinn is an expert in this field compared to me. He has been skiing and snowboarding for most of his life, so I let him do all the talking. After being dissapointed by the rental situation at the resort, we caught a free shuttle bus into "town" (a few stores and restaurants about 10 minutes away) to see what we could find. We settled with a shop that gave us clothing rentals and board rentals for about half the price of the resort and we were very happy with that. We even snagged a deal where this guy picked up all of our friends from the bus station later that night and in return got all of their rental business. I decided to snowboard, as I am better off with my legs together and miss out on the chance of them going two very different directions. I am atheletic, but sometimes not the most coordinated. Anyways, with our new boards and clothes, we hitched a ride from the store owner back to the resort.
We had recieved a couple of coupons for the attractions around the resort and decided to try out the waterpark. The waterpark was fun, but of course with a Korean twist. For example, you are not allowed to enter certain areas without a life jacket and swim cap on. That applies to all ages and all swimming abilities. There were a couple slides, a lazy river, outdoor and indoor hot tubs, a jimjibang (Korean spa), and snack areas. It was nothing compared to the many indoor waterparks in Wisconsin, but it was still a good time. The highlight for me was this large outdoor hot tub that has a restaurant and tables in the water. The only things sold were coffee and pizza cones. Pizza cones, genius!! You swim up and order a cone and munch on it at a table in the water. I was loving it. After about five hours in the waterpark, we were both very satisfied and headed back to the hostel to meet our friends who had finally arrived.
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| Quinn posing in front of the waterpark, "Peak Island". |
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| Ready to go! |
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| The classic children's mushroom, BUT its surrounded by massage jets for the adults. So smart Korea. |
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| The lazy river, which actually wasn't that lazy because it had some intense currents. |
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| Horrible photo due to the steam from the hot tub outside, but this is the pizza cone place. I now know why Koreans pronounce both of these words strangely because the Korean characters sounds are "Kah-Pee" and "Pee-Sah". |
Saturday, we woke up early to hit the slopes. When I say I was nervous, that is an understatement. Luckily, about half of our group were beginners and the other half were experts. So, I had companions with me on the bunny slope. Quinn was very kind and came up to the bunny slope with me at the beginning to pass along a few tips. I ended up just going and I could stand up pretty easily, but if you know snowboarding I was not actually snowboarding, just really coasting down the hill. But, I was completely content with that. By the end of the day, I had gone on an advanced hill and felt pretty good about myself. Thankfully, I was wearing butt pads and knee pads, so I was not in as much pain as I would have been because I did quite a fair share of falling.
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| The crew on the slopes. |
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| At first, I didn't even recognize myself because my face is completely covered! |
So, remember I mentioned this Intertional Ski Festival? Well, Quinn and my friend Brian both raced on the Wisconsin Ski team in college and signed up to race at YongPyong! They both did awesome in their races, Brian got first in mens skiing and Quinn got third in mens snowboarding. Brian actually won a new pair of skiis and Quinn won a free trip to the dentist (at least he will have nice teeth!). It was really fun to watch both of them and cheer for them at the bottom of the hill. It is amazing how fast some people can go.
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| Our racers! Brian (left) and Quinn (right) |
After a full day of skiing, we were all starving and headed to a traditional Korean restaurant for dinner. It was awesome. But, after dinner got even better. Because we had two winners in our group, we headed to the International Ski Festival banquet to claim their prizes. What was intended to be a five minute visit, turned into a full blown crashing of the banquet. It was amazing. We spent the whole night mingling with people from all over the world (mainly people from France, Norway, Sweden, America, and Korea). We closed down the DJ singing "Born in the USA" and Justin Bieber's song "Baby". We managed to all leave wearing Team Norways customized sweatshirts and carrying posters, waterbottles, and blankets. It was a major success.
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| Brian celebrating his victory with the banquet guests. |
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| Enjoying the banquet crashing. |
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Oh yes, it was bat mitzvah style dancing all night long.
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Sunday morning, we were all a little beat from working the banquet, so half us skiied/snowboarded and the other half went to the waterpark. I had gotten rentals for two days and decided to hit the slopes. The second day was better, but my body was tired from the previous day. I started to get a hang of actually snowboarding the second day, but as soon as I would get going I would fall on my head. But, I had a great time still.
Before we knew it, it was time to visit our gyro man with one eyebrow one last time for a snack, hop on our shuttle buses, and head home. YongPyong was probably one of my favorite weekends in Seoul. There is nothing like finding a way to enjoy the cold winter, while having a blast with your friends at a resort in Korea. The only negative, I was probably sore for about the next week. But, all and all, it was a perfect way to spend the weekend.
Here is the link to the resort if you wanna check it out:
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