Let's go Rock the Snow on a Board!

"Toes, heels, toes, heels, ass, get up and start again" 

It's winter holiday and I have the week off to go and do whatever my heart desires. When I got to Korea and heard that snowboarding is on the table for the winter months I was adamant to go rock the slopes. I skies before in Europe with my awesome family members and I had so much fun. Why not do this awesome sport again?! 

I organised myself a bus ticket and a place to sleep the week before and I was out of my skin excited to go. My bus left at 05:30am in the morning and since there is no trains leaving from my town that early in the morning I crashed on my friends couch for the night. Stood up really early and made my way to the bus station. At 6am the bus still hasn't arrived so I thought to myself "something must be wrong, I'm at the wrong place". In broken english and with body language I asked a Korean girl directions. When I got to the right place there was another bus waiting. I asked if this bus are going to Welli Hilli Park Resort which is the resort I went to and he said "Yes, get in." I got in, fell asleep, woke up at the wrong resort, after a little bit of confusing conversations with the staff of this resort they sent me back to Seoul on a bus to catch the right bus FREE OF CHARGE!!! This made my day!

Eventually I got to the right park where my friends were skiing. I organised myself a lift pass and a snowboard, got changed in my snow gear and off I went! I thought to myself: Here I go! I've got this. At first walking with the board on my foot took some getting used to. I felt a little off balance. 

I was quite amazed at how much I remembered from the previous time I snowboarded. And how much guts I had! I really didn't think I'll remember this much. But I did and I even learned some new skills. I can now snowboard goofy heels and toes, and normal heels and toes and I can do 360° in both directions or as they call it a simple shift. Still working on the courage to jump. But I'm improving! 

I also had a little bit of a hiccup with my accommodation. I booked accommodation online which looked like pretty close to the resort and in Korea there is so many busses that it's pretty possible to get anywhere by bus. But not this time. I tried to find out what busses I should take to get to my hostel and it turned out that there is no busses going to the town where my hostel is so the only option was to take a taxi. Taxi's in Korea is really expensive. I ended up cutting my loses to save money and booked a new hotel in Wonju. I didn't book it; the receptionist did at the resort. When I got to the hotel it turned out to be a love hotel. Although it was extremely clean and relatively good priced my little overnight bag I got at the hotel cracked me up. In this little lucky packet as I call it there was 2 toothbrushes (because I use a different one every night), a body sponge, some facial cleanser, a condom, some lubrication and body massage gel. I just had to laugh at the items in the bag. I don't know why they didn't remove it as I pitched up girl alone and booked a room for 4 days which is quite unusual for them. I think South Africa should actually learn from the Koreans in this case.

I boarded for 2 days and the monday I just had to take a break. Learning new skills doesn't come without falling on your ass and on your face plenty of times. The whiplash that came with falling caused for a nice sore back and forced me to take a day to recover. And so did my bank balance. Skiing is not one of the cheapest hobbies to have. But one day only. 

The next day I was back on the slopes practicing my new moves and trying to build up the confidence in speeding. Going to fast freaked me out a little as I like being in control. The condition of the snow was also not really at its best. The first day was extremely slushy, second day icy, 3rd day the slopes had quite a few balls of snow, and the 4th day the layer of snow was perfect although the chill factor was in the minus.

I ended each day with a nice hot bath to rest my muscles, defrost my toes and fingers and spoil myself a little. Boarding is definitely a weird type of exercise and some parts of my body, like my knees, took quite a lot of strain during the day. At night dinner was also a necessity. Waking up late, catching the bus and skiing the whole afternoon doesn't leave much time for one to get a nice healthy meal. My meals for the week consisted out of burgers and coffee which ain't the best of ideas. So the last two days I made a point in getting a healthy meal for dinner at least and they say red wine is good for your heart so....

I guess falling on my butt so many times ain't such a great idea for my coccyx. I think I might have bruised it a little. But hey, it was an amazing trip, expensive, but amazing. If I could afford being on the slopes all season that would be fantastic.