Madeline in Korea: Put my ski jacket to the test!

In December a group of friends and I took a trip to an outlet mall in Yeonju. Not only did it have two Starbucks, it was filled with countless high end stores and American retailers. My goal was to find and buy the perfect down jacket. For weeks people had been telling me that "to survive winter in Korea you must have a down jacket." Whether that is truth or not, I took the advise to heart. Finally at the end of the day we wandered into a jam packed Nike store. There in the 30% section was a bright pink and purple down jacket. I quickly tried it on, it was perfect, not drab nor too short. It was mine.

Ever since, whenever I wear it to school I am bound to have at least one person, student or coworker comment, "so are you going skiing? haha" While the jacket is cute, it is not exactly "professional work attire." I also did not realize when I bought it that it was a "ski jacket" and not just a winter jacket. Koreans are very specific about what types of clothes are worn for specific events, i.e. hiking gear for hiking, work out gear for working out, ski gear for skiing, evening wear, school uniform, etc. Perhaps I committed a slight faux pas. In conclusion how often I wear the jacket has steadily declined.

But yesterday my ski jacket was put to the test! We went skiing! This week is Lunar New Year in Korea so Wed/Thurs/Fri are national holidays. We previously requested Mon/Tues off as well. Originally we were hoping to go to Japan for the week but after looking at the cost of airfare and train tickets, it just seemed too expensive at this point. So instead we decided to get up early on Monday anyway and head out to Phoenix Park.

Yes its a ski jacket! And it changes color!

Phoenix Park is one of Gangwon provinces most popular ski resorts. It is only about 45 minutes from Wonju by bus. Pyeongchang, the region its located in, hopes to be the host to the 2018 Winter Olympics. They have made the bid (for the third time, hoping to be successful this last time!) and are now just waiting. As I've said before the area is beautiful, filled with mountain after mountain, tall and looming in the horizons, with winding rivers and small clearings in between.

Since Jason and I obviously don't own ski equiepment or ski gear we had to rent everything at Pheonix Park. They made it extremely easy to do so. You walk in to a huge open area, with ski and snowboard rentals to your left, and clothing rentals to your right. Upstairs is the food court and the entrance to the slopes. Also upstairs and outside in a near by building we discovered Starbucks, more restaurants, an arcade and bowling alley. These are to serve the various large hotels near by.

We got to the resort around 11am but couldn't start skiing until 1pm. That gave us time to rent snowboard pants and eat some lunch. It was really cold outside and I was worrying about freezing on the slopes. I had about four layers on (ski jacket of course) but was still cold. Jason was so nice he picked out a new head band, long thick socks and gloves for me while I was changing. When I came back to the store he was ready to buy them! I was so impressed that he even picked out cute girly things! (What a great guy.) We had an American lunch at Popeyes and shared a Peppermint Mocha at Starbucks. By then it was time to purchase our tickets and gear up! Jason wanted to snowboard while I decided to ski. I'd only been skiing one other time before this, when I was 12 (thus 12 years ago!) but Jason is a decently experienced snowboarder. I didn't realize this meant he had never skied before and when he was attempting to guess at and teach me the basics I kept wondering why I didn't choose snowboarding too!

Ski boats are ridiculous to walk, I think everyone looks like robots the way they pick their feet up, but I made it outside carrying my skies. I snapped in and Jason pushed me around on the flat ground for awhile. All I could remember from my pervious experience was that to stop you made a snowplow. I was trying to watch what other skiers were doing and Jason was vainly trying to instruct me how to turn. I made one successful run down a slight incline and we decided we were ready to head up the hill to the bunny slope. We easily made it onto the chair lift, to my relief, and when we got off were greated by the many snowboarders who were plopped over in the snow, strapping themselves onto their board and unable to move. Jason insisted it is extremely difficult to stand up without sliding once you have both feet locked into your snowboard so that was his first time getting on the board. Eventually we started to make our way down the hill.

Things were going okay for the most part, it was a bit scary to try to dodge all the people on the bunny hill who were stopped or fallen over or zig zagging out of control in front of me, but I managed. I just kept snow plowing so I would go slow. Jason was really good at snowboarding from the beginning, able to pace himself and stay with me. We almost made it to the end of the slope when suddenly there was a rather steep decline, right at the end, especially steep for the bunny hill.

I gulped as I looked down at it. Skiing was already terrifying enough for me. While zooming through the breeze was fun, there were definite moments where I wanted to panic. I don't think winter sports are necessarily my "thing." I'd already complained to Jason quite a bit about how dumb this all was. I even compared skiing to playing softball, something else I loathe. Jason said he was going to tell my Dad I was a wimp. But after my successful trip down the slope I was loosening up a little. But it didn't help that right as we approached the final drop and end to the bunny hill we saw this little girl zoom by down the slope, out of control fast, she hit the snow, flipped and was done for. She sat up only to cry. Her dad quickly fell over next to her, attempting to get to her as fast as he could. It was not an encouraging sight. I wanted to walk down but Jason said I couldn't. And I knew I couldn't so I finally decided to just go for it.

Exactly as I thought would happen I picked up speed, lots of speed. My snowplowing wasn't working, I was trying to turn a little from side to side but wasn't good enough to have that much control. On my right was a fence marking the edge of the slope, on my left were people. Directly in front of me were people. I tried to turn to the right but definitely didn't want to hit a fence. The kid in front of me, 30 feet, 20 feet, 10 feet in front of me wasn't moving, he was stopped in the middle of the slope. I knew I was going to hit him even though I tried to move. And boy did I! Slam! Right into him I went. The kid, probably about 11, went right over me as I knocked him out of his skiis. I slid under and wasn't hurt one bit, or even really knocked over. He pretty much broke my fall. And I thought I had broken him. His Dad quickly rushed over and I mumbled "I'm so sorry!" over and over. He looked like he was kind of laughing at first, or was he just surprised? He and his son had matching stripped wolf hats on, complete with ears. Jason quickly zoomed over as did the safety skiers with their first aid. They asked if I was fine, I was. They asked the kid. He just kind of sat there not saying anything at first but then, so I gathered, said yeah, he was fine. He had goggles on and I think he kind of hit himself in the face, or I hit him, and then he landed on his back. He was fine and he and his Dad slid away as I stood shaking trying to get my skis back on. Needless to say I was not happy. I was super sad and felt really bad. And was convinced that I was right and skiing was a horrible dangerous sport. Confidence shattered Jason encouraged me until I went down the rest of the way.

But we didn't stop, we went back up the lift and started down the mountain again. This time when I got to the same spot I stopped again, looking down at the path below. I felt like I would never make it down the stupid hill now! I sighed and went for it. I don't think I really needed to, but because I felt like I was getting too fast again and because there was a man far below me on the same path, I decided to just sit down, while skiing. I couldn't stop any other way so I just tried to fall back. And it worked, I stopped, a ski popped off but I was totally fine. But then to my left I heard some yells and saw a girl falling and then saw Jason. In trying to come over to me and help me up he had run in front of some girl, whom he startled and caused to crash into him. Then I was even more upset because now not only had I hurt some little kid, now my inability to ski properly had caused more potential injury! (Again everyone was fine.) Even though I was crushed at this point I knew we couldn't stop, we'd paid $100 and had only been down the slope two times! Instead of making fun of me Jason knew I just needed to pitifully vent and hear some encouragement so up the mountain we went again. This time we didn't stay together, which was much better. And when I neared the bottom again I just sucked it (and waited until it was as clear as could be in front of me) and went for it! And I made it!

After that we did a total of about 8 runs before deciding to call it quits, the slopes were becoming icy and littered with more and more falling snowboarders and young skiers, thus it was becoming more and more obsticle ridden. I was very impressed with Jason, before skiing and skating I didn't know he was so athletic. He looked a lot better than most people and was easily able to stop and control his speed. Me? Well I did improve but I was still wasn't good at speed control. I would zoom down the mountain, praying no one would get in my path because I could not have avoided them.

I'm not sure skiing is for me, but it was a really fun day! Maybe if I had a private course I could get over that fear of hitting something? Haha, I'll keep dreaming. My reward for the day was one more Starbucks right before we boarded the bus back to Wonju. I enjoyed getting away and spending so much time outdoors, which in the end wasn't so cold. And the scenery was beautiful, mountain after mountain covered in snow.