Ski Trip

I had a very eventful and fun weekend. It started Thursday afternoon with 13 of my friends coming to Yangji to go skiing. I had a coupon for a free night at one of the condos at the Yangji Pine Ski Resort so we all went skiing together and then stayed up late hanging out in the condo. It was a lot of fun even with the super icy skiing conditions. The next day my friends Chi Ha, Kevin and Steve and I drove to YongPyong Resort in Gangwon Do to ski. YongPyong is Korea's oldest ski resort and it was a really good time. They had some really challenging and long ski runs and it only took about 2.5 hours to drive there. After skiing in YongPyong for 2 days we drove to Phoenix park which is another big ski resort in Gangwon Do. The snow conditions there were much less icy but it lacked the really challenging runs that YongPyong had. We still had a good time though. We actually joined this Korean ski club and stayed with them Saturday night so we made a few new friends to ski with! It was a really fun trip and definitely has me pumped to do more weekend road trips here in Korea.

snow gone!!!

It was about 50 degrees here yesterday and it rained all day so the snow is now melted except at the ski hill where it is now really really icy. Oh well! I guess the snow doesn't usually stick around very long here in Korea. This past weekend was really great! I went skiing Saturday morning with my friend Kim Chol Og. He is a 50 year old Korean guy who is a teacher at a nearby elementary school. He also loves skiing and hiking so in the fall my Korean co teacher intoduced me to him. We had a great time and I think my downhill skiing skills are improving as I was able to clear the big jump on the hill! It is a 15 foot table top. Then Saturday afternoon I drove with Liz allan and steve up to YangPyeong (about 25 miles north or a 50 minute drive through really pretty mountains). My friend SangMi's parents have a cabin there! It is on the Han river too(Its the biggest river in Korea) We had a great time! We made korean barbeque and played in the snow. Sunday afternoon I went hiking on the way home on a new mountain range about 30 minutes from my house that I really wanna go check out again since I didn't have time to make it to the summit. Having the car makes life here sooooooooo much easier from where I live going to a place like Yangpyeong would take about 3 hours or more using busses and trains but its just an easy traffic free 50 minute drive through the countryside with the car! Up for this weekend is a trip to Gangwon do for some skiing in big mountains!

enjoying the snow!

I acheived a life long goal of mine this past weekend. I sledded down a mountain and it was awesome. after all the snow we got on monday I realized that i should go buy a sled and then take it out to the local hiking trails for some crazy sledding fun. I hiked with some friends around the trails taking turns doing the downhills on the sled. I also skiied a bunch this past weekend. I definitely need to take a few days off to recover from all the skiing. in 2 weeks I am taking a trip with some friends to Gangwon Do to ski some big mountains. It will be my first Korean road trip so it should be a blast! I am even taking one day of vacation for it! 5th and 6th grade english camps started today too. The 5th and 6th graders are a lot easier to control than the 3-4 th graders so hopefully I won't lose my voice this week from always having to talk really loudly.

Busan trip then skiing!! Then monster snow storm

My trip to Busan was great! I had a lot of fun with my friend Misun and her family. They were super nice to show me all over town. As I mentioned last time I at a lot of crazy seafood some of which was still alive! After returning from Busan my English camp at school started. It is definitely tiring teaching 6 hours of class solo to kids who basically don't know any English but I am having a good time anyway.
Sunday night we had a huge snow storm too! It snowed about 10 inches here in Yangji and I guess thats the most they have had at once in over 10 years! The mountains are really beatiful all covered in snow and the skiing is a lot better on real snow! The only problem with all that snow is the fact that there aren't snow plows here to clear the road! So there is a lot of crazy driving going on right now since people aren't really used to driving in snow. Thank goodness my car has 4 wheel drive or I wouldn't even be able to get up to my apartment. Because of the snow they cancelled my english camp for 2 days so I have been going skiing in the afternoon after spending some time planning lessons in the morning.
Last weekend was a lot of fun too! I had 11 friends come to Yangji to go skiing ang 7 of them slept over at my tiny apartment afterwards it was a little cramped but we all had a lot of fun. Up for this weekend is more skiing with friends and more apartment sleep overs. The season pass and the big SUV I got are definitely paying off since I am taking lots of people skiing every week!
I hope everyone had a great christmas and new year!