We headed north and stopped by a ski shop Rob had been
to. Here we got our rental gear and ski
lift tickets for the following day. Then we went to our room in one of the many
buildings at Muju’s resort. By the time we got into our room for the night, it
was after 3 am. Crystal, a friend of Seth and Gio’s, was already there waiting
for us. The rooms are pretty expensive but they didn’t seem to care that we
were all staying together in one suite, so it ended up being just 45,000 Won per
person for 2 nights!!
We unpacked a bit and got ready for bed. Some of the group-
Dan, Seth, Rob, and Yonodan- were all planning on walking up at 5:45 to go
snowboarding and skiing for the dawn and morning sessions. They ended up
waking up on time (although Dan just stayed awake). I learned this night that
I am a very light sleeper because their talking woke me up and kept me up until
after they left. Rob and I had an ongoing joke over the weekend that I was in
his head because I could quote things he said that weekend when he had no idea
I was around to hear them.
After the guys left, I made it back to sleep for a few more
hours, until the phone in our hotel room rang. After about 3 rings I ran to get
it, realizing nobody else was awake enough to really hear it. On the other end
was a man from the rental shop telling me, in broken English and Korean that he
was here with all of the rental gear for everyone still in the room along with our
ski lift tickets. While on the phone, Pete and Crystal woke up so I recruited
the two of them to go downstairs with me and bring up ours and everyone else’s
stuff. It took about another hour and half for us to get everyone else awake
and ready before leaving to take the shuttle to the mountain base closest to
us.
We arrived right at 10am, with five and a half hours left to
use on our ski lift tickets. Pete, Lizzie, Renee, Amanda and I took the lift up
to the top of the closest mountain and then we strapped ourselves into our
boards to get ready. Lizzie was the only one skiing in our group and she was a
bit nervous because it had been a few years since she’d last gone.
Once we started heading down the mountain, we stopped every
few minutes or so because someone had fallen behind or was tired. I liked going
at this slow pace because it meant I wasn’t getting sore. It took us a while to
get down and when we did make it down, Lizzie was pretty discouraged. She, Pete
and Amanda headed inside to get lunch while Renee and I met up with Rob, Dan
and Yonodan. The guys were just about to grab some food and head back to our
room to nap but Renee and I convinced them to do one more run.
They told us about a run four miles up that had spectacular
views and amazing snow so we headed up two lifts to get to the top of it. It
was a lot of fun to board down. The snow for the first 2/3 was absolutely
beautiful and great to be on. It was fresh and powdery. It had been snowing
since very early that morning and was continuing to snow as we were heading down.
Dan had his video camera out during this too. I think he was impressed by how I
was doing; except for the way I still had to stop every so often, although a
lot less than when I was with the other group. He was pretty tired from already
being out there so long and not sleeping at all the night before.
As we were out there,
Rob talked to someone from the hotel and was told that we would have to change
to a different room. Originally, we were going to head up to Muju on Saturday
morning so we didn’t book a room for Friday night until Friday day, so due to
the separate reservations, we had different rooms. That lead to Rob, Dan and
Yonodan heading down the mountain much faster than Renee or I could and they
took a shuttle bus back to the room so they could quickly pack everything up
and take it conveniently to a room in
a different building. :) What troopers!
While they were busy taking care of that, Renee and I made
it down the mountain and rode back up to come down again. Then we tried to meet
up with the others we knew were still around somewhere. That proved to be a bit
difficult and when we did actually meet up with Lizzie and Pete, they wanted to
go snowboarding again. I was plenty tired from not sleeping well that night and
from the snowboarding I’d already done, plus I was starving. So I offered to
wait in Lotteria while they went down for another few runs. I knew I was tired
but I didn’t realize just how tired I was until I sat down and waited for my friends
after what seemed like an eternity. I actually almost fell asleep in the busy
and noisy fast food shop. :o
When I met up with the others about an hour later, we headed
towards the shuttle buses and made it to our new room. This place was a bit
smaller than our last room, and double the price because it was on the weekend
(and a holiday). It still had two bedrooms, one of which had a bed but the
other was very small. Still, it worked out well for those who were not finished
playing in the snow because this building was practically connected to one of
the slopes. You literally had to walk out back five steps and you were ready to
go down the mountain!
When we got back to the room and took all of our cold
weather clothes off, we ate and lounged around the TV for a while. Then we
started drinking. Some had beer, some had soju, and some had wine. I had Kahlua
and Pepsi. We played all of our regular
drinking games with cards and when we ran out, some people made a run and
brought back small cups to play flip cup on the edge of the coffee table.
Dan and Seth went out for skiing from 10:30 till 12:30. By
the time they got back, EVERYONE was in bed asleep or about to be sleeping. It
was pretty surprising and funny at the same time! However, they figured they
should get in bed too since they and a few others were planning on waking up
around 6am again for the dawn and morning ski sessions.
Sure enough, they woke up, a bit sleepier than the morning
before, along with Rob, Yonodan, and Renee. They made it out a bit later but they
still got in lots of great runs. It wasn’t snowing anymore, and the skies were
crystal clear making for exceptional fun. All weekend they were recording with
Dan’s video camera and Seth’s Go Pro camera. I spent a good majority of my
Monday night and Tuesday morning (ok..
afternoon) pulling snapshots out of those videos and I compiled a 200 photo
album of the excitement onto Facebook.
While that half of our group was off on the slopes, the rest
of us were slowly waking up, cleaning up and then checking out. Last time we
were in Muju, Pete’s car needed to be jumped twice and what’s a trip without
car trouble? Surprisingly, it was not Pete’s car that had trouble, but
Lizzie’s. When she put the key in the ignition, it would not turn at all, so
after we tried several things, we had the receptionists help call her insurance
company. Shortly after, a man came out in a bright pink truck to assist us.
After fiddling with the car for a few minutes, he turned to Lizzie and said,
“No.” We had no idea what he meant. At first Lizzie thought he was saying he
couldn’t help us and was just going to leave, but it turns out he was saying
that he’d have to call another, bigger truck out to tow her small car to the
nearby shop. Pete and Lizzie drove off with the mechanics while Gio, Amanda and
I waited in the downstairs lobby, with a great view of the slope. Less than fifteen minutes later, Pete returned and informed us of the situation. Yes, we had all looked like huge incompetent idiots, but that’s nothing new in a country where we can hardly communicate with the locals, but more importantly, Lizzie’s car was fine. Apparently, when driven into the shop, the man there took the keys and started it right up with no problems, so we are not really sure what was wrong. We just know we didn’t have any more trouble with it afterwards.
Once we got back to Gwangyang, Dan and I took our stuff home
and laid around for a while until we met up with the others for pizza at Mr.
Pizza. We were all hoping to eat hajeongook, but it was closed, which I had
expected, seeing how all of the Korean restaurants were closed as Dan and I
walked back. Plus I remembered how they usually are off during their national
holidays, like Chuseok.
Dan had Monday off, so we spent that together and when he
left that evening, I began working on this blog entry as well as pulling
pictures from the videos. You can see some below: |
| L to R Gio, Crystal, Yonodan, Rob, Lizzie |
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| Seth, Dan, Rob, Yonodan, Renee |
 |
| I love when Dan takes video's where you can see us both like this, such a cool effect! |
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| Rob looks AWESOME!! |
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| Dan and Yonodan on a ski lift |
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| Dan making it look easy! |
 |
| Taken from Dan's video camera, no one we know but a gorgeous view! |
Until next time, stay warm and happy!
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