I Suck At Skiing.

One of the benefits of Korea being super mountainous* and super snowy is you can ski here. So, we did.

We went in February with a group of friends, to Muju which is Korea's most famous ski resort and conveniently in the same province as Buan. Apparently it can get really busy there in winter, but we went late-season and had the Pension we were staying in to ourselves.

I learned a few things from our trip to Muju:

• Skiing in Korea is really cheap. We paid around 60,000 won for gear rental, lift passes and transport to and from the ski fields. If you have your gear already, it can be as little as 15,000 won (less than $20 NZ).
• I can't ski. I went skiing with some friends on Mount Ruapehu a few years ago and I thought I'd got the hang of it. After wiping out 10 times on two runs down the 'bunny slope' I ended up sitting in a cafe, drinking a hot chocolate and nursing my wounds.
• Having seen the bunny slopes in Korea, I don't want to see what counts as advanced. I'm used to Happy Valley on Ruapehu which is usually studded with beginners like me. Instead I had a kilometre-long stretch of ice covered in Korean people being awesome and skiing awesomely. It was humiliating being helped up by a 5 year old rocking a snowboard and looking cool.

Here are the three pictures I took during our trip:

My smile lasted about 20 metres.

 

My coffee cup asked and I obliged. 

MATCHING COUPLESSSS!

* I got told once that if you flattened Korea out, the land area would be the size of the United States. Flattening the United States out wasn't mentioned as a possibility.