The 29th YongPyong International Ski Festival

Now that I'm done with SE Asia blogging I can move on to some other exciting stuff. Like the time we all went skiing/snowboarding in February during a festival at YongPyong Ski Resort in the city of Pyeongchang. The cool thing about this resort is that it's the candidate resort for the 2018 Winter Olympics. And as of now it's between Annecy, France, Munich, Germany, and Pyeongchang, South Korea to host the 23rd Winter Games. It will be announced on July 6th who the winning city is. So soon! My money is on France since it's been 87 years since the French have had an Olympics but with London hosting next year's Summer games, and Pyeongchang narrowly missing out on the bid in 2010 and 2014, SoKo might just complete the World Cup (2002) - Summer Olympics (Seoul 88) - Winter Olympics (2018?) trifecta in the near future. We shall see.

******************7.07.2011 UPDATE: PYEONGCHANG WON THE BID!*****************

Korea became just the 6th nation to land the "grand slam" of international sporting events with the 4th event being the IAAF Track & Field World Championships to be held in Daegu later this year. Korea joins France, Italy, Germany, Japan, and Russia as the only countries to host all 4 major events. This feat took them only 30 years. [Arirang News]

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Back to boarding. Thankfully Jules and I were able to get some free days off during our desk warming stints, including the Friday before our ski trip. We left first thing in the morning in order to get there with plenty of time to check out the resort, check in to our hostel, rent some equipment., hit up the waterpark, etc.

Waterpark

Waterparking

Difficult to see, but this is a swim-to hot tub bar

In general, skiing/snowboarding is not a cheap hobby. I know this because a large portion of my college income (definitely without any help from my parents....) was spent while on the UW Alpine Racing Team. It's no secret that lift tickets, equipment, transportation, and the occasional chalet hot chocolate can run a hefty tab. Lucky for us, skiing in Korea is real affordable. The same weekend in America would have cost us maybe 3 or 4 times more. And it should have been an expensive weekend because we had to rent everything. Literally everything. Not just the board and boots, but pants, gloves, helmet, goggles, and even butt pad (cough Julie). This could have cost an exorbitant amount. Since we got there so early and were able to scope out the area, we found very cheap deals in town just outside the resort. I think I paid something around $50 for equipment + clothing for 2 days of skiing. It's been a while since I've entered the rental realm but that seems real reasonable. And if you happen to go to YongPyong, I highly recommend NOT renting anything at the resort. Venture into town a bit, shop your options, and you can save 40~50%.

quick UW Ski Team shout out!

This post is starting to bore me a little, so I'm going to move on to some more exciting stuff, e.g. the International Ski Festival. We didn't really realize this festival was going on until the week before and, boy oh boy, did we luck out. The events planned for the festival were slalom and snowboard races, discounted lift tickets, and a banquet. Brian (skiier) and I (snowboarder) were excited to race because we were both on the UW Alpine Team, but had heard that we missed out on the registration deadline. Luckily, we were able to register B and me at the opening ceremony, and got free sweatshirts, beers, and food in the process. 

Opening ceremony

Fielding questions

The next day we got an early-ish start and headed out for some sunshine and powder. Some of the girls had never been snowboarding before so it was nice being able to help them out a bit. Even though my dream as becoming an instructor hit a bump in the road as I realized I'm not that good of a teacher (even with all the experience in the Korean classroom!).....oh well. Real job it is. Soon after, I put on my bib and headed over to my race. Since I hadn't snowboarded (let alone raced) in over 2 years, I wasn't expecting much from my performance. But based on the low number of participants (~25) and the fact that the course was fairly straightforward, I had pretty high expectations. I happened to show up late for the race so I was the last dude to go before the ladies took to the course. Right out of the gate I felt pretty good until, two turns in, I took a heel-side turn a little too aggressive and took a digger. Luckily it was a minor fall and I was back up in a few seconds. Losing all pre-race anxiety when I fell, the rest of the race went pretty smoothly. A snowboarder at the finish line told me he was pissed because I was the first one to beat his time. I was super confused because I fell yet this dude is basically telling me I won. Feeling pretty bewildered and excited at the same time, I took pictures with Brian (who tore it up I later heard) and headed to lunch.

The rest of the day I couldn't help but think I won my race. We had to wait until the closing ceremony to find out for certain though. Here are pics from the rest of the afternoon.

The closing ceremony tickets were roughly ~$50 so decided to skip the dinner part and show up for the fun part, i.e. awards and dancing. My dreams of winning a race were fizzled as I realized I was "Bernd" by a couple of Euros and took bronze medal. And the prize that I had thought way too much about all day turned out to be a gift certificate for a foreigner dental office in Seoul, which worked out well in the end because I had been telling Julie the weeks prior how badly I needed to go to the dentist ha. Brian, on the other hand, DID win his race and walked away with a pair of $900 skis! Whatever though, dental checkup, $900 skis, same same.

I was Bernd

Bronzin'

Brian and his competition from the day......

The rest of the night became a bizarre, Euro-inspired, family-friendly dance party set to the tunes of an American DJ playing music not unheard at many American weddings. There were a number of European expats who came to the International Ski Festival via companies, embassies, and vacations. The most-represented nationalities were ze über-friendly Germans, le chic French, and the way-too-generous Norwegians (but you already knew that, Grandpa!). They each had their own posse, section, and matching outfits. I don't know the other stories, but the Norwegians had so many people there because the chairman of the festival was the Norwegian ambassador in Korea and apparently every Norwegian living in Korea (a) is tall, (b) is really good at skiing, and (c) received an awesome sweatshirt that says 'Norway' on the front and 'YongPyong Resort Korea' on the back. Somehow, our group shmoozed the Norwegians enough that a bunch of them started giving us their sweatshirts. Even though they were given them, they didn't need to just give the sweatshirts to us. Norway would be proud of the caliber of people they have repping them in Korea. My sweatshirt came from an older dude gave me not just the badass sweatshirt, but a bunch of shots of Norwegian gasoline also known as akvavit. I told him how I had Norwegian ancestry and in a thick, slurred accent he said "Ve are vamily, take my sveatshirt and another shot you vuss!" If Norway has people like this, I don't know why I haven't booked my flight yet. Here are photos from the rest of one of the greatest nights in Korea.

Le French and their non-stereotypical berets...

So friendly

Before and....

...after