Solo Adventures to Yongpyeong Ski Resort.

My winter break wasn't as adventurous as I had hoped it would be. When my plans to visit Japan fell through, I found myself staying close to home for the majority of the break. Between the festival in January and getting ready for my black belt test at the end of February, I found it hard to convince myself to leave and visit other places. Upon realizing that my vacation was soon ending, I was determined to go out and visit somewhere. On Facebook, a travel company that plans short trips around the country aimed towards foreigners was advertising a day trip to Yongpyeong Ski Resort. Unfortunately, there was no skiing on the schedule, but it still looked interesting, and it wasn't too expensive. The only downside was that it left out of Seoul early Sunday morning and came home very late Sunday night. This meant that I needed to find a place to stay for Saturday and Sunday nights. That was alright, however, because it gave me the perfect excuse to get out and visit Seoul a bit.

So I rode the train into Seoul on Saturday and checked into the place I was staying. When I travel and don't have something specific I want to do, I am perfectly happy just walking around and seeing things. I decided that I wanted to go to Namdaemun Market and Myeongdong. Namdaemun is the largest market in Seoul and is a massive expansion of shops, restaurants, and street vendors. There were so many people and many things. I ended up buying a few rings for really cheap and a present for my friend, I was going to see the following weekend. Not far from Namdaemun is Myeongdong. This is the shopping district in Seoul. This area has lots of chain stores with clothing, beauty, and jewelry. There are also a lot of street vendors here as well. I didn't spend as much time here, but it was cool to get to. From there, I was tired of walking, and I was ready to get back. I spent my evening getting ready for my long trip the next day.

Yongpyeong is actually located at the bottom of Gangwon Provance. About three hours away from Seoul. When we got there, though, the mountains were beautiful and covered in snow. Something that was missing up on my mountain in Hwacheon. As soon as we got there, we went right to putting on the rented snow pants and jacket. They gave me a bright orange jacket. I was very sad, but at least I didn't look quite as bright as some of the other people. We then took the gondola up to the top of the mountain. I found out when I was there that two very famous Kdramas, Goblin and Winter Sinota, were partially filmed there. I found that really interesting because Nami Island (in Chuncheon, near where I live) also had Winter Sinota filmed there. I should really get around to watching those shows. The view from the top of the mountain was very beautiful, and we got to spend about 15 minutes just enjoying it and taking pictures.

When we returned to the bottom, it was time to go snow tubing. I was disappointed that it wasn't free sledding, but actually, a competition that we were participating in, so I only got to go down twice, but it was neat that there was an escalator belt on the ground, so we didn't have to climb up the mountain. I did come down so fast though both times, that I had trouble stopping. The first time, I ran right into the inflated wall in the back, and the second, I ran into another person. I felt terrible because it hurt. I didn't get a chance to apologize though. The girl just disappeared afterward.

After that, we returned our ski clothes and moved to the indoor portion of the trip. This included dressing in hanbok and having dinner. It was a lot of fun. The whole trip was part of the Asia Snow Festival that was being held that week, so we also got to play some new years games as well as enjoy a taekwondo demonstration. It was a really nice way to end the trip.

I actually got to meet a lot of really nice people while I was there. There were foreigners from all over: Netherlands, Philippines, Thailand, Pakistan, India, Egypt, etc. It was really cool to get out of my comfort zone for the day and experience something. I took the initiative and it paid off. Yay!!!