Korean drama - day 4: Skiing at Phoenix Park (27.11.11)

Did not have much sleep last night I guess.  Struggled to fall asleep at 12am for a while.  Heard the guys were sending Tetsuya off back home. Woke up at 2:30am by some QQ messages!! Alarm rang at 4am! But I still manage to get out of bed up diligently 6 minutes later.  Prepared and left hostel around 4:56am. Managed to catch a cab at 5 exactly. The voice of news reporting on the radio was very soothing.

The ride was only about 20minutes instead of 50min as the 1330 helpline mentioned. The taxi fare wasn't expensive in Korea. For a 20km ride, W15800 looked reasonable!

I walked to exit 4 of the Samseong station as directed in the website. Found Glass Tower immediately. Saw two guards inside and they understood what I wanted!! One of them brought me to the bus stop. Although the signboard mentioned the bus arrived at 6:15am, the guards actually told me 6:45am instead!!

Saw some seats outside a convenient store, GS25, ahead of me! After I finished my hot coffee, it was still half an hour more to burn!

Although it wasn't really that cold, it got chilly once I sat long enough! Around 6:08am I saw a bus stopping in front of the stop! Quickly walked over.  Asked the driver for Phoenix Park (The name of the ski resort) and hopped in immediately to get warm.

My lunch at the ski resort

Ready for the next ride!

The bus departed right on the dot. Saw many enthusiastic skiers with their own ski gears!! Stopped shortly at the next pick up. But much longer on the last pick up point. Around 6:35am we were heading towards the ski resort!!!

The bus was so warm. I took off my shoe first. Next, my jacket. Then even after my sweater was removed, I still felt very warm and could hardly sleep.

Around 8:20am we reached the beautiful Phoenix Park ski resort! Everyone seemed to have a tag as they scanned while they alighted. When it was my turn, the guy said something which I presumed he wanted me to wait. Finally, there were only 3 more passengers on board. Two of them were talking to the conductor pretty long. When the conductor eventually said more things to me, I just smiled and replied in English with my W10000 in hand. One of the passengers helped me to translate if I had bought my bus ticket. Obviously I haven't. I paid and was given a ticket. I thanked the guy, alighted and walked to the ticket office right in front.

Cool snowboarders!

"An adult ticket for one please?!"
"how long?!"
"full day please"
"oh no full day. what time?!"
Luckily I looked at the signboard briefly and managed to understand what she meant.
"4:30pm please"
There was another ticket till noon time.

Let the Fashion Show begins!

She pointed the price "W64000". I gave her W65000. She said W3000 more. I guessed the system showed her that. Then the supervisor behind her stressed W68000 to me in a stern look! 

Resting at the foot of the slope

Perhaps, that should be the right fare and I could only pay instead of arguing.  Went in to look for the ski rental section. They asked me about my ticket. I gave them the chair lift ticket I bought instead and realized I haven’t pay for the ski rental. So, I returned to ticket booth and then walked all the way back to the rental registration with the W30000 ski rental ticket I just bought.  

He asked for my shoe size. I wrote 43 on the slip given. He said “No! No!”. I wrote 9. He said “No! No!” again. Then I saw it was in millimeter!! How would I know my shoe size in millimeter??!! He then took a look at my shoe and estimated my size which turned out to be pretty accurate, although I still got it changed later since it was a little tight and uncomfortable.

Here's a better view

Misty chair lift ride!

Stuff my bag and shoe in the W1000 coin locker. Went out to the ski area and realized it was drizzling. Had to keep my sling bag in the locker as well. Chewed some chocolate bars and off I went!!!

I would said 99% of the skiers were youngster and 90% of them were snowboarder!! They were in all kind of fancy outfit!! The guys and the girls looked pretty cool indeed.

I started a couple of rounds on the penguin course (beginner) to familiarize myself (after such a long break from skiing). The last time I skied was in Beijing, Jan 2009. It was a long slope.

Then I moved on to the intermediate and finally an expert slope too. I thought it was a blue slope (intermediate slope). Didn't know I could venture the black one as well. Had a few rounds trying to cover all the different paths. There seems to be more slope than what I'd gone through.

View from the chair lift

Selfie on the chair lift.

I met a few local from Busan. One of them on the black course. He told me it was his first time snowboarding!!!!

The slopes at Phoenix Park

Around 12 plus, I started to get tired and fell down a lot. Once, I had a hard time walking back to one of my ski which came off and was left behind. A couple tried to help me but they were not close enough as well. After some struggling, I managed to walked side-way up and hooked my gear back. Some ice actually went into my right shoe. Worrying it would later get wet and cold, I decided to stop and rest for lunch.

View from the top of the slope

It was a pretty long and tiring walk to the restaurant.  Stopped at the bench to catch my breath before I went in and ordered a beef noodle for W8500. Not much options either. Then had a cup of hot latte and rested till 2pm before I continued again.

Finally, the coffee lady was the only other Korean I met who speaks good English besides the guesthouse owner.

Getting ready to leave at the bus stop

My first black diamond attempt

Thought I would rest earlier but before I knew it, the ski lift started to close! I made the final ski down to the rental area again. Freshen up and bought some snacks. Walked to the bus stop. Glad that one of the attendant speaks reasonable English. He said 5:20pm. Met a Singaporean family of 4 but did not get to chat more. They boarded a different bus much earlier. Found out that there were actually buses going to Hapjeong!!! I hope my pronunciation didn't bring me to another "Hapjeong" in Seoul!! The guy was even lazy to give me a ticket.  Perhaps, he could keep the W10000 himself!! Then the bus driver started asking everyone’s final destination. Luckily I was not the only one going to Hapjeong. One lady was the only person going to another stop and he said so many things to her!!

My Yaki Udon dinner

It was really a long ride. After 3.5 hours, the bus finally reached Hapjeong. I was so delighted because I was starving to death!  The bus stopped at this place with quiet a number of different restaurants.  I boldly picked a Japanese restaurant, which acted like one as well.  Perhaps, I was trying to ponder over the wonderful Yaki Udon I had at Shikoku, Japan.  I ordered the same, but it tasted better than I expected!  Maybe I was too hungry that even Nattō going into my stomach would taste great as well.

It was an exhausting day and I had no trouble falling asleep like a baby.

Korean drama - day 3: Lazy day at the hostel (26.11.11)

First taste of great Korean BBQ dinner!

Woke up at 10:30am. It was a boring and lazy day.  Did more planning for my lone ranger hiking excursion, until my stomach started to protest and went for lunch with Ruud and Matthew around 2:30pm.

We were back to the Hongik area again and stopped at a coffee shop near the university.

This is how Guinness is supposed to be!

I got a couple of brochure from the tourist information center. The Songnisan National Park was not as close as mentioned on the website.

Didn’t go anywhere for the rest of the day but came back to the hostel to do more planning.  We have new guests coming in. Two westerners whom I didn't get to chat with and a lady from Netherlands, Cora who went for WWOFF (the organic farm volunteer work that I’ve experience before in Japan) for 10 weeks!!

After all the planning for my three weeks stay here, I decided my first stop shall be the skiing resort!  So, I got into bed early to try and get enough sleep for the early morning departure!

Korean drama - day 2: Wandering around Hongdae area (25.11.11)

Morning snacks...

Woke up at 9:30am. Had breakfast and met some new friends at the hostel including a couple from Fujian, a guy from Beijing, a Dutch, the same French guy and a Mexican. The last four of us had a long chat until one plus. Then I got ready to go walk around the area.

Remembered a friend I met in Taiwan telling me about this interesting place near Hongik University! And I found out it was just walking distance away from my hostel!

First meal in Korea.. and my
favourite after that..

It was a nice sunny day. Not too chilly. Left around 2pm and snacked on some local delights on the street near the Hapjeong train station.

Nice cafes and shops...

It was a short 10 minutes walk to the place more famously known as Hongdae (dae means university). Saw many young Koreans. There were a lot of amazing and nice gadgets. Hopped into one restaurant and stopped for late lunch. The spicy soup was nice. Slightly too hot for me but manageable.

I continued to walk and walk and walk.  The café here were very exquisite exterior wise.  Not sure about the interior though cause I wanted to spend more time walking around instead.  But, they seemed to be mostly very small and cosy.

One of the many cute little cafe.

A female guitarist at the uni..

I also took a quick tour around the university.  And saw a spa on the map and thought of checking it out.  After a long search around the surrounding area based on the Google map, I still could not find it.  The staff at the convenient store looked surprised that there was even a spa round!  Still not giving up, I asked the reception at the hotel nearby and was told (in English) that it was already closed.  Whether it was really closed didn’t matter anymore but because I was finally convinced not to search further.  Anyway, the staffs were all very helpful and trying hard to explain even when they don’t speak English.

Digital public phone!

Cool cafe...

Then, I passed by a pretty cool café and hopped in for a sip.  Bearable coffee but the place was very interesting with lots of books for you to spend the rest of the winter there reading.

One of the four pork dishes!

That was Tetsuya trying
to take a picture
with his camera

After 5 hours loitering around, I was back to the hostel.  Met a new Japanese friend, Tetsuya.  We all decided to go for dinner together with Ruud (as you might have guessed, the Dutch) and Matthew (as you might guessed again, the French).  We walked around and randomly picked a restaurant with a big pork sign outside.  The menu was pretty complicated and server didn’t speak English while none of us speaks Korean. 

Nice bike!

Then, a very helpful guy, dining on the next table, voluntarily came to help us!  He was the friend of the owner and explained every single thing in the menu, although I recalled there weren’t many things written on the menu and that was why we were confused with it.  If I don’t remember wrongly, there were only 4 main dishes to be chosen, and of course all of them were pork!

Everything for the puppies!

After the splendid dinner, we moved over to an Irish pub just next door and had more beer!  Interestingly there have all kinds of cocktail made from Guinness as well, but I rather stick with the original black!  With four guys around, what else could we chatted about all night.  Girls, women, ladies and girls again.  In between, we discussed about movies and almost everything pop up in mind.

Left the place around 1 plus and strolled back home together merrily without feeling cold at all.  Reached the hostel about 2am and slept happily after a great day.