Let's ditch this place and JUMPSUIT!

No, sorry. Only one bum per car please!

Because I think my partner is busy watching movies, I’ll go ahead and get this out of the way. So, for the past two weeks we’ve been doing a lot of the same thing. And that same thing is snowboarding! So, I’ll just start at the beginning, give a quick rundown of events, and call it a day. Please forgive us for being so lazy at this blogging thing. You try taking time out of your busy day to write about your busy day and insert pictures of your busy day and sometimes create a movie of your busy day. Not so easy, huh?

Eating dinner on mats on climbing gym mats!

Well, last weekend started off with a split. Sam and I split up. Sam went to dinner with some friends while I went to a bordering competition at another one of the climbing gyms in Pohang. It was interesting; there were only 7 or 8 routes in the competition. I wasn’t good enough by far. At first I wasn’t going to put my shoes on. Too many people and my skills weren’t up to par. But the climbing center owner kept asking me, maybe 5 or 6 times. I guess by request number 7 it was time to follow through and get my shoes on. I tried a few, didn’t do so hot, and then the comp was over. Food was prepared in a side room and everyone sat down on the mats to eat and wait for the raffle. Too bad my raffle luck wasn’t on par that night – I didn’t win anything. I left the competition and went to meet up with Sam and everyone else. They were all at a bar having a great time. Sam and I participated in the excitement for a while, but left early because we had to get up at 3:30am to catch the bus snowboarding. We walked to her house, where we were going to have a sleepover. Then Sam had a brilliant idea – “Hey! Wanna watch a movie?”. Of course, I came up with an even more brilliant answer – “Yeah I do!”.  And that’s the reason why we only had 30min sleep before shipping off to HighOne Ski Resort.

We met up with our friend Marty and his friend at the bus stop. The bus ride consisted of LOTS of sleep. We arrive, get our gear, and get out on the slopes! The whole day we board – I won’t go into many details because it might make everyone jealous. Just know it was fun. We arrived home in Pohang about 8, ate some dinner, then went home to crash.

Mr.Big candy bar. "When you're this big, they call you mister"

Yes, the girl has the girlie flower board!

Crashing? Why? Well, we crashed because at 8 the next morning, Marty and I were meeting up with DongHoon to do it all again! Yes! We were going to Muju Resort this time. We met up just like planned, headed out of town, then disaster struck. The car was BROKEN. We spent 2 hours dealing with that. Our friend DongYup, who we were to pick up on the way to Muju, ended up driving to Pohang and we took his car. A more cramped car ride, but that was ok. We were on our way! It was another excellent day of snowboarding – though a bit icy. But the lines were short and the weather wasn’t too cold. We got there a bit late, because of the car trouble, so we bought an extra pass and continued to board at night! The conditions were 10x better! Even shorter lines and even less people on the slopes! Perfect! Finally though, it was time to head home. We got back really late, and again crashed. It was a perfect snowboarding weekend!

My "name-tag"

Haha oh Marty

Written by: Sam

So this past week has now been my THIRD time snowboarding and I think I am getting better! It was also by far the most fun time I’ve had so far!

This weekend we did it all sorts of different! We didn’t take a bus, we didn’t wake up before the bars closed, and we didn’t eat at the ski lodge. What we DID do was sleep in, leave at 2pm and eat ramen out in the snow. Yep, it was a totally different trip than the bus rides and it was great!

The night before we all went to a rock climbing party. It being the end of the year and all, a party was therefore appropriate. We went to a samgyeopsal place and had the most amazing beef I’ve had since we came to Korea. There was also quite a lot A LOT of drinking (mainly by the older climbing guys) which in the end led to a 20,000 won per person bill. While at the dinner I asked our friend Marty what his plans were for the night. He said he was going to see Harry Potter and then go to a booking club. He had me at Harry. And so after eating, he and I took off to meet some old friends, and new friends at the theatre. This of course was the second day since the movie came out, so anyone who knows me can assume its my second time going to see the movie because not even a North Korean bomb could keep me away from seeing a Harry Potter movie on opening night!

We were planning on running away with the cash...but we thought better of it.

Courtneys Friday Night - Singing Room. BIG singing room

After the movie - which was great, you should all go see it NOW - we met with some more new friends and went searching for this “booking club”. Now, I had never been to a booking club but I heard that guys would go there in groups, and have girls sent over to them by the bartender or someone. I wasn’t really sure how it would be different if we girls went with the guys we were with (because we just wanted to go there to dance, not to be sent over to anyone of course), but in the end we never found the one we were looking for so we settled for Whistlers which is a popular bar down town.

The next day we all slept in pretty late and then met up at 2 to head to Muju Ski Resort! The car ride was about 4 hours and Dong Hoon drove. By the time we got to Muju and got our snowboards and everything, it was already past 6pm and we wanted to eat before going on the slopes. So we parked our car next to a cute gazebo and the boys busted out their stove-in-a-cardboard-box and ramen. It took a little while to get everything ready and going, and while that was happening, Courtney and I were freezing our butts off. There was snow all over the ground; lots and lots of snow, and had nothing to do but wait until they finished cooking. It was SOOOOO cold! It was much colder than the first two times I’ve been because there was much more snow here, AND it was night time. 

Jae Hyun looked like the guy on the 10,000 won bill

Arg! Snow!

Courtney was cold, so she turned herself into one of those creepy mermaids people say are fake.

Soup out of a cardboard box is the best!

Once we ate our ramen, we headed up to the slopes! Courtney, as we all know is a pro at snow boarding, and Dong Hoon has his own board, but Dong Yup, Jae Hyun and I were all relatively new to the activity. Dong Yup, although is apparently some all around sports man because he was amazing on the slopes in spite of it being his second time snow boarding. It was Jae Hyun’s first time, but after a few tries, he was also doing amazingly well for a beginner.

Another reason why this trip was a lot more fun than the others was because we all stayed together all day. The other times we went, everyone was split up and I was left behind because I was learning, but this time, the majority of us were new at this so we stayed together and had fun the whole day. We finished around midnight, then packed up and headed home. The drive home was pretty calm except for when the scariest thing in the world happened! We were driving down the mountain, making a turn, when the car slipped on some ice and skidded along the road! Thankfully Dong Hoon was a total pro (and hero) and got control of the car quickly and smoothly. The rest of the ride was once again calm and uneventful. We didn’t get home until about 4:30 am and I’m sure we all walked into our houses and just passed out from exhaustion.