It's been a 5 month slog (if you can call working in a hagwon a slog) since our last break from work. In contrast to England, where jobs just throw holiday days at you and we greedily gobble them up and ask for more, Korea runs a much tighter ship. We are only entitled to 10 days holiday of our choosing (I say our own choosing the holiday we took in July was mandatory), but luckily Korea has a few national holidays, so the whole country can take a well-earned break. The timing of the Chinese (or Lunar) New Year for 2011 means that the holiday actually lasts for a whole 3 working days (last year I think it was just 1), plus the weekend, making it a whopping 5 days in total off work! Although modest in terms of English breaks, this is the longest holiday we've had since arriving here and we were wanting to grab it by the udders with both hands and milk it for all it was worth.
Originally we planned to explore the Korean interior to the South, summiting the second highest peak in Korea, Jirisan and enjoying other natural sights. However, this was before we fully appreciated how cold the Korean winter actually would be. Suddenly, hiking up a near 2000m peak in icy conditions without the aid of humble walking boots, let alone cramp-ons (still not really sure what these are but Sarah's mentioned them a couple of times - apparently they are very useful for this sort of thing) seemed a bit foolish. So instead, we decided to return to the beautiful neighbouring province of Gangwondo and base our holiday around the city of Samcheok. In addition to this, we also thought we would try our hand at snow-boarding. This is an activity which I always thought "that looks cool, doubt I'll ever try it though" (mainly because it's similar skateboarding - which looks really painful - and because there's no opportunity in England to do this). However, one of our friends, Matty, is a snowboard instructor back home and kindly offered to give us a free lesson. Plus the fact it's so cheap to do in comparison to Europe, some other friends were already going and I cant really say no to a new experience. Plus it's on snow, so it cant hurt too much, right? I couldn't turn this one down.
We got the early bus at 5A.M. to YongPyong resort. After a long journey and getting our equipment sorted, we were finally kitted up and ready to hit the slopes by 11:30. Sarah and I had pretty much no snow-based sporting experience behind us (I went skiing once when I was about 12 - the only part I remember was not being able to stop at the bottom of the slope and careening into a whole queue of people, knocking everyone down in true slapstick fashion. Sarah had been snowboarding once - in Dubai of all places - about 2 years beforehand), so we were keen for Matty to stick with us for a bit and show us the rudimentary skills. My aspirations for the 2 days were to A. Stand up on the board and B. Be able to stop without the aid of a human barrier system. Anything else was a bonus. First Matty showed us 'skating', strapping one boot in and using the other foot to move around. Even this most basic of skills felt very strange at first but became just about manageable fairly quickly. We then had to 'glide' on the board, this involved stepping up onto the board with our free foot and letting the board do its thing. We had to become accustomed to this position as this was used dismounting the dreaded ski lift. I think I was even more anxious about this aspect of the snowboarding experience than I actually was trying to ride the board! I've heard many embarrassing stories of run-ins with ski-lifts and I was pretty sure I would soon add to the tales of woe. After 'gliding' we then had to learn the essential art of stopping. This involves leaning back on your heels and attempting to scrape them into the snow. This is the brake mechanism when stopping on a snowboard. My first attempt at this resulted in backside meeting snow for the first time and they became great friends over the course of that first day on the slopes. After practicing this skill a few times (all but one of these attempts resulted with me on the deck), Matty decided we needed to attempt the next stage, stopping for real, both feet strapped into the snowboard. And to try this we needed to traverse higher ground and this meant only one thing - the ski lift of doom.
I noticed other people were taking their board off and carrying it onto the lift, this way they could just merrily hop off the chair at the other end, without a care in the world. However, Matty didn't want us to get into bad habits, apparently this Korean practice although easier for beginners, isn't tolerated around the world, so it was best to try and learn properly from the outset. Getting onto the chair is the easy part but as we got to the top I could feel the anticipation building, even with Matty's love and care to assist us off. It didn't help matters when I saw the pretty steep gradient of the slope we were to descend, Matty was chilled though, it was part of the plan, apparently. I prepared to dismount, our boards hit the top and we began to glide very unsteadily off, Matty had hold of one of mine and Sarah's arms but even with this guidances we still ended up on our arses. This was to be a running theme over the course of the 2 days, much to the annoyance of the lift operator at the top, especially as I wasn't the quickest at getting out of the way for the next group of people's dismount. Oops. We edged round to the top of the slope (which looked even steeper from above) and listened to coach Matty's next words of wisdom. This is where we had to master stopping, otherwise we would go face first down the slope, something I wasn't keen to try. Luckily, in addition to Matty's skills as a snowboarder, he's a big guy so he was able to stand facing us, with his back to the slope. This was too make sure we didn't go over ourselves as we practiced the heel-digging technique we needed to apply the brakes. Getting up and balancing on the board was hard enough work in itself, even with Matty's help, but this new techinque was even harder to use. It was difficult to find the right amount of pressure to slow yourslef down without stopping completely and falling backwards. However, with Matty's cool head and a bit of focus, we were able to start to get to grips with it. Matty was an absolute star he had spent about 2 patient hours with us newbies when I'm sure he would have loved to have been 'shreddin' in style down the expert courses.
It was then time for Matty to leave us as we needed to practice on our own. This presented another challenge - negotiating the lift without our teacher. Mastery of this continued to allude us all afternoon and I think only once did I manage to keep on my feet (and this was only achieved at the expense of Sarah, who I cut up completely on the dismount causing her to fall instead of me, which she loved). However, the actual fun part of riding down the slope (albeit without much directional sense) became easier as the day wore on, culminating in my best run of the day, falling down just a mere 3 times on my descent. I was suprised by how much every part of me ached by the end of the day and I was a bit concerned about how I would fair the next day. What I really wanted was to use the resorts spa and sauna facilites, but it was decided the next evening would be best. A decision I was not that receptive to, especially the next morning when I was stiff all over. Mobility was definitely an issue but luckily I began to loosen up on the walk and after a couple of runs. On day 2, we were joined by our Korean friend, Eileen, another novice. Or so we thought, however, after a couple of journeys down the slopes together, it became apparent that Eileen never fell over! This was only her second day too, but she was definitely showing us up! After a few more descents, I gradually got the fall count down but still hadn't completed a single run without at least one fall. However, my overall control was improving and I was having a great time just doing my thing. We then decided to mix it up and head to another beginner slope. This slope was busier and you had to be more aware of tiny Korean children flinging themselves down the slope with complete abandon. Well if locals aren't going to be aware of your presence on the street, they definitely weren't going to on the slopes! However, this was actually a blessing in disguise as it made me improve my braking skills and also begin to learn how to direct the damn thing, which was probably the most difficult beginner aspect for me to learn. However, by the end of the day I was beginning to control the board a bit better and (perhaps slightly foolishly) was getting up to some fairly decent speeds in places down the slope, which was a definite buzz. Our session ended and I left the park a little weary but very satisfied with how the 2 days had gone. The fun was not over yet, however.
YongPyong has a large swimming pool complex, complete with flumes, rapids and a jimjilbang
style sauna. However, the part we were most interested in was the hot tub section. Just what we needed after 2 tiring days on the slopes. I had used muscles I didn't even know existed and I was looking forward to a nice long soaking. After a couple of slides down the 2 person dinghy style water flume we headed to the OUTDOOR hot tub section. The weather had actually been pretty mild during the day but now it was evening time, the temperature had definitely plummeted. We opened the door to go outside and were treated to an icy blast in the face, resulting in a mad dash to the first hot tub. At 35 degrees, we decided this was just not hot enough, so mad-cap, slapstick hilarity ensued as we legged it to the next hot tub in just our swimming clothes . This one was beautifully hot at 39 degrees. Bliss. The open air hot tub after 2 days snowboarding was a winner. There was even a huge hot tub section with a bar accessible from the water! Awesome. After a long, reviving soak we high-tailed it nearby Pyeongchang to complete the day with some quality Korean cuisine. Great end to an amazing 2 days.
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