One of the perks of living in Korea is being close to the snow!  It has actually snowed in Ulsan a few times already, and one day snowed enough for it to actually stick — at least for a few hours.  Although it doesn’t snow much where we are, it snows quite a bit in the other areas of Korea.  You just need to drive a few hours and there it is!

In the January issue of FLiK magazine, they detailed several different places for skiing in the area.  They also gave information on the bus systems that you can use to get to these resorts.  After reading these, Chris decided we should take a ski trip.  When Chris gets an idea in his head, he runs with it, and you had better hold on!  He asked a few friends if they were interested, got some help from a Korean to book the bus tickets, and away we went the very next weekend.

Admitting that I wasn’t ecstatic about this trip is an understatement.  I love to ski and was also a “boarder” at one point, but I in no way compare to the level of skier that Chris is.  When I was a kid I was much more adventuresome, but the taller I got, the further I had to fall.  I now quite enjoy the greens and blues but will never, ever stray to a black.  I like to relax while skiing, and black slopes do not sound relaxing to me.  The other big issue was that our bus left to bring us to Muju at 4:40 a.m.  Yes, so that meant we were up at 3:00 a.m. to get ready and out the door in time to catch the bus.  If you know me, you know that early, early mornings are really not my thing, at all.  With all that said, I really enjoyed the trip!  I planned ahead and made lots of snacks for the bus, brought a neck pillow so I could try to sleep on the bus and brought a book to read when sleeping on the bus was impossible.  It should also be noted that the bus was super nice, which greatly improved my opinion of the trip.  The seats reclined almost to a laying down position!

Thankfully our group befriended another westerner (Ben) that had been to the resort previously.  With his help we got all of our equipment rented, our friends sent to ski school and were headed up the mountain before we knew it.  We had been warned that, like most things in Korea, the slopes would be crowded with people.  During our first few runs, it wasn’t too bad.  I mean, we had to avoid a few Koreans stopping to take selfies. Other than that, we were OK.  Our group ended up dividing into two groups based solely on who wanted to ski blacks and those that didn’t.

I went off with the girls and our new friend Ben.  We made a few runs before we regrouped and headed over to the second base to have lunch and try out a few other runs.

If you are in Korea and looking for a place to ski, I would definitely suggest Muju Resort.  It is beautiful out there, and there are plenty of runs for every type of skier and boarder.

Here is our newest video, created and edited by Chris.  Hope you enjoy!

Things we are looking forward to this week:

• Valentine’s Day — we are going strawberry picking!
• Counting down the days until our next trip to Texas — 22 days!

Here is to next week’s stories of our adventures in Korea!

Michelle

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