New Years Day at YongPyong

The Bat and I celebrated New Year's Eve with a seven course meal with the Crowards. We greeted the New Year in on the top of our apartment building singing Auld Lang Syne! If there were any large scale fireworks in Seoul, sadly we could not see them, but we enjoyed the few small ones let off by enthusiastic locals.

Getting up for 7AM this morning was tough, but I made it. We met the travel agent rep at the appointed location, the metro station Euljiro-1 in Downtown Seoul. For reasons unknown this was not the actual start point for the coach to the resort, but a short walk away. We settled ourselves in the comfortable large coach, the five of us were almost the only passengers. There was a short stop at Jamsil where we paid for the bus 26,000 Won per adult return. For reasons unknown, this was taken out of the package on the day and we had to pay in cash. We reached the YongPyong resort at 11:30 after two and a half hours on the traffic free expressways, at least they were in our direction. In the opposite direction, traffic was very heavy and came to a standstill at several places. Later, after I spoke with The Bat, I realised this was due the huge number of Koreans who had been on the East coast at Ganjeolgot watching the sunrise on New Years day and welcoming in the Year of the Golden Pig.

Checking in, and also finding only four sets of bedding in our Korean style room in the Tower Condo, involved some complications, but these were soon amicably sorted out. Keen to get out on the slopes we examined the price list for the ski lifts and equipment hire. Mercifully there was English, but this masterpiece of complexity was not available on leaflets to take away! Eager to take full advantage of the slopes, they opted for the Evening session since the afternoon session had already begun.

After a wicked snowball fight, we spent the afternoon playing the board game "Life" which is new to me. Sadly, getting a degree and being an athlete, did not bring me the riches I so rightly deserved, but at least I was not last!

We had Bibimbap for supper and the Crowards purchased lift passes and rented their skis. I waved them off into the floodlight snowy slopes and returned to a hot chocolate and the internet Cafe! I look forward to their breathless return with tales of excitement. If you are have Windows and are happy to install an active X component you can checkout the webcam at the resort. I will be joining them on the slopes soon enough tomorrow morning after a hearty breakfast. Photos to follow next week, since I cannot upload photos at the internet cafe here.

I'd like to wish all my readers a Happy New Year and I wish you all the best for 2007!