4

The beard is growing, the belly is shrinking, and I went skiing in South Korea.

Last weekend, the first weekend of February, Joel and I took to the slopes with three of our Korean teachers and a couple of their friends. We went to a place called Muju, where there are hills everywhere, and every single one is brown; except the spots where you can ski. It was all artificial snow and it was only in the runs and five feet on either side past the fences that mark the edges of the course.

We took a bus to get there, leaving at 4:25am; neither of us bothered going to sleep before then, we just stayed out at the bars. I bought snow pants and gloves the day before and Joel was just going to try his luck at the slope. He wound up finding XXL pants that fit snugly when the button was undone, and he never found gloves, so he used my backup cotton ones; they didn't last the trip. Boots were also an adventure, thankfully they had my size with room to spare. But even with the biggest boot size they had (315 mm; I was 300) Joel's foot fit only well enough to get by with significant pain.

There are two hills at Muju, Solcheon and Mansan. On the Solcheon side, my favorite side, at the very top is an area that can be best described as Black Diamond heaven. None of the runs compared to 7th Heaven, the steep mogully face that goes back down to the chairlift, but at least they had the right idea at Muju. There was one high lift and one lower lift (at the top of Solcheon), both bringing you to the same place. There were seven runs from the top; 2 Double Diamonds, 4 Black Diamonds, and one Blue Square. I spent half of the last day riding down the diamonds to the almost always empty upper lift, and then skiing the diamonds again. It was awesome. Joel, who's skiing abilities were put to the test opted to enjoy himself and spent his day riding skid row, the blue square. We didn't explore Mansan for the simple reason that that is where everyone goes to learn how to ski/board. Where we were there were significantly less people. Joel had to fight his way through crowds on skid row, but I rarely had to compete with anyone for space--the diamonds rarely had people on them.

Two of the Korean teachers were learning how to ski and snowboard, respectively. The third Korean teacher, who has skied for 10 years, was stuck as a teacher; it was her boss trying to learn. I tried to help too, but my itch to go ski bigger things was too strong not to scratch.

This was probably the best weekend I've had so far. Although it may be surpassed by this upcoming 4-day weekend for the Lunar New Year. Abbie's and Joel's birthdays are during the weekend, so we are hitting the 4 corners of Busan for 4 wild and crazy, drunken nights. We're going to start in Haeundae, then move to Kyungsung, spend the third in Seomeyon, and I have no idea what the fourth night is; maybe Gwangon. Technically speaking, the weekend is half over, last night was KYU, but I'll write about it later.

One Awesome thing: Cell phone coverage. I've only lost reception once, and that was on the bus back from Muju. I have service in elevators, underground parking lots, on mountains, everywhere. It is understandable since everything is a lot closer together here, but it puts all of the USA company's networks to shame.

One Hanus thing: Creepy old Korean businessmen that want to learn English. Just because I am an English teacher, doesn't mean I want to teach you. Every teacher in Korea has experienced this, unless they are new or actually want to teach creepy old Korean businessmen.