KOREA '07 Day 2 :5 degrees Celsius and sweating!

LOOOOONG OVERDUE. Many thanks to Khai Ven for the reminder.

The picture says it all. I was a SKI GOD. Not. Nevertheless, today was still the best part of my Korean tour. It’s just so bloody fun! The ice is so slippery that just standing up on them skis without sliding away was a challenge at first. Then, I took off on my first straight run. I skied all the way in a straight line till natural friction stopped me. AND THEN THEY CALLED ME A PRO! ^.^ The difficult part was getting back up. They taught us to side step, so that the ski plane is perpendicular to the slope. But it’s still difficult not to slip. Eventually we all found an easier solution. Just take off them skies, walk back up and put ‘em back on. When I did this repeatedly, I found to my surprise which shouldn’t have been, that I was sweating! At 5 degrees!

Oh man…since I’m writing this post so long after that day, I just can’t remember anything about that day other than skiing. I remember…that there were so many Koreans my age who were just having a blast skiing and snowboarding with their friends. I think that in Malaysia we have just about every sport imagineable except this. Except anything that involves snow, sand or lava. Floods are still ok, as we can go water rafting then. But anyway, yeah skiing was so great, that we still had a choice to continue doing it after lunch, which was exactly what we did. All the way until evening. Then we went for dinner. I can’t really remember much about lunch and dinner, except that it was also steamboat, also had lots of kimchi, and lots of long white mushroom. And not forgetting more ‘Hite’. Mmmm…I was beginning to see the trend in which our meals were going. Steam, veggie, and alcohol.

After dinner, we went shopping at this really tiny mall near the ski resort. You taught Bangsar Village was small? This place was like a street with shops on both sides and a shared roof over the street itself. Here, I saw some German boardgames too! Not a lot like in Malaysia la thanks to Edwin and goons but a little. Lost Cities, Halli Galli, Ubongo, Gulo Gulo, all in Korean, and not cheap. It was also here that I found the most desirable Spongebob Squarepants wallet I had ever seen!!! I so wanted to buy it la, until now I donno why I suddenly I had super-natural strength not to give in to my impulse spending habits. I think it was because I thought that since such a remote place like that could sell that thing, surely I could also find it in Seoul for a cheaper price right? Bah, whatever la. My biggest regret during of the Korean trip.

That night when I returned to the hotel room, it was so stuffy man. As I drew back the curtains to open the window again, I witnessed an entirely surreal sight. My room had a beautiful view of the skiing grounds, and them Koreans were still at it! The skiing grounds had a giant clock and as I looked at it from my window, it was almost 12pm! But what nearly made my eyes pop out of my head was that right there on that giant clock next to the time, was the outside temperature of -2 degrees Celsius…

…and that hot Korean chick. Still skiing. Skiing in her….MINISKIRT???
I must have been dreaming. Surely I must have been already dreaming.