A dim sum-mary of Hong Kong

Almost caught up! This latest post happened only 2 months ago. 2 months!

Back in May, a few of us were lucky enough to get a 4-day weekend because of Buddha's birthday. I was given my vacation days with very little notice but was able to find real cheap round-trip tickets to Hong Kong on wego.com (great website for travel within Asia, check it out). I chose HK because (a) it was a much cheaper flight than anywhere in Japan, (b) I'd heard fantastic things and it's China...sort of, and (c) three of my buddies in Korea were independently going: Eric by himself, Jo with her parents, and Chris by herself to see some old friends. I figured it was in the cards to hit up HK.

My awesome co-teacher and vice principal let me leave school early on that Friday and Roger (my buddy that's fulfilling his mandatory 2 year public service at my school) generously volunteered to drive me the 1.5 hours it takes to get to Incheon International. I hopped on an afternoon flight, stopped briefly in Beijing, and continued on to the city of lights, finance, and dim sum...Hong Kong.

I landed at HK International around 10pm. Since I was traveling sans Jules, I had to be responsible for my own hotel info, transportation into the city, etc. And contrary to popular belief, I actually came prepared. In my pocket was a printed-out confirmation of my hostel, the Yesinn, a detailed, printed-out bus schedule with info to my hostel, and my passport.  I took out some Hong Kong Dollars, bought an Octopus card (debit card for mass transit + convenience store goodies), and found my bus heading for Hong Kong Island.

The ONLY problem was, when I reached into my pocket to pull out the info telling me where to get off the bus I got a handful of nothing. Here I thought I was being all "indepedent" and not "needing a chaperone" i.e. Julie, and here I am on a bus heading into Hong Kong, no hostel info, no bus info, no clue where I'm going, no nothing. It must have somehow fallen out while purchasing the Octopus card. That damned (yet extreeemely handy) card cost me my travel info (I didn't have Julie to blame!). Thankfully I still had my passport. Didn't lose that. Positives to build off of. Sweaty and slightly worried, I ventured on. My mind was a little eased when I saw the beautiful sights of Hong Kong. Driving into the city it looked a little something like this...

aaaaaaand then I was over having lost my info. Such a beautiful city. I vaguely remembered which area I had to get off the bus, Electricity Rd, and took my chances. I got off the bus and started hitting the streets in search of the Yesinn. Unfortunately, it was starting to get late, was ~90 degrees out, extremely humid, I had a huge backpack on my back, dripping sweat, and walking the same 4 block radius over and over. No convenience stores knew where the hostel was. One time I went into a 7-Eleven and asked the ladies working where the Yesinn was. After giving each other dumbfounded looks, they told me they "don't sell those here." Great. Chalk another one up to lost in translation. Eventually I went into a different hostel (ANY hostel was really difficult to find in this area) and the extremely nice guy called the Yesinn, told them I was coming, and gave me a map for his hostel yet wrote down where mine was. Chalk another one up to Asian hospitality. I ended up finding my hostel, sent out emails saying I was alive, and hit the sack in my room already full of sound-asleep, snoring backpackers. Then it sunk in, I was in Hong Kong.

The next day I woke up before any of my roommates and met up with my friend Chris, along with her friends Sara and Justin. Sara is Chris's friend from home who works for Reuters in HK and Justin is Sara's friend from HK who works for Morgan Stanley. They're great people and even better hosts. We met up early so that we could hit the New Territories for some hiking alongside the ocean. The hike was about an hour outside of the city and was a little more intense than I thought it was going to be. We took the slightly more difficult 'Sharp Peak' route and hiked for ~5 hours give or take. The hike lead to some breathtaking views. The only downside was we were so high at one point that the view was completely engulfed by the clouds. It was still a fantastic way to start off my trip in Hong Kong. Here are the photos...

"This trail to Sharp Peak is very treacherous and difficult. For safety reasons, you are advised not to proceed"

Sara and Chris

Sara, Justin, and a sweaty me

'Accomplishment beers' along the beach 

That night I waited for Eric at the hostel. When he arrived, the two of us went to meet up with our friend Joanna in the Soho district. After saying goodbye to Jo's parents, we hit the night running. Quick side story. Justin had texted me earlier in the night to go to ALS. As an abbreviation connoisseur, I figured this was either a district or a 3-word bar/club. We asked a super friendly Italian guy what one means if they said "go to A-L-S." He didn't know but took us to the nearby bar distrcit LKF (Aha! Acronym!), or Lan Kwai Fong. We were still confused by the whole ALS thing but decided to hang with our new friend Simone. He took us to a club on the 30th floor of a building, which was maybe halfway up. The club was free to get into, but if you wanted to go out on the terrace, you had to buy a drink. We all bought the cheapest beer they had, Heineken, for about $15 each. Sounds expensive but the way I see it, cover is $15 and it comes with a free beer and a hell of a view. We never did find Justin that night, but on our way out of LKF we noticed a pretty happening bar. Al's. Words of wisdom, never assume anything is an acronym.

Lan Kwai Fong

The infamous ALS

To be continued.

Working the fire on the 4th of July

America. Man do I miss it sometimes. The family, the friends, the holidays, the food, the excess. Unfortunately I've had to spend 2 out the last 3 Fourth of July's outside of the U S of A (although Argentina and Korea ain't shabby places to be I suppose). Last year I was at the Dave at Alpine concert, which is a tough act to follow. This year I was fortunate enough to spend the 4th at.....work. Because of the different time zones the 4th fell on a Monday here in Korea (No? Timezones don't work like that?). Work day as usual for us migug's ('American' in Korean). This actually isn't that unusual for me though. I'm usually putting the work in 'fireworks'. In my teenage years I was bartending on the 4th at Geneva National, so any 4th to celebrate is a bonus.

After hours of gchatting my parents about how awesome the fireworks are up at Lake Redstone, playing a word game challenge with my boys at school, and watching the NYPD blow up confiscated fireworks...

...I headed home to spend the 4th having a picnic along our river in Yatap with Julie (I want to make a pun with July and Julie but just can't think of a good one right now). Anyways, we ate Julie's delicious potato salad, grilled some beef (thanks again Greg), and popped cherry tomatoes while trying not to get eaten alive by mosquitoes. Once it got dark, we tried to light off some fireworks. Let' just say, we're thankful this post doesn't have a link to a news story about a couple of waygooks ('foreigners' in Korean) getting arrested for burning down Yatap. You could have called me Lisbeth Salander the way I was playing with fire. Ok, let's rewind.

Me: Julie let's light this one (a Roman candle).
J: Ok be careful.
Me: Careful is my middle name.
J:.....

The second I light the sucker, it intermittently shot out balls of fire! Who knew?! A firework?! Feeling as if I'm driving a speeding car into a parade without any breaks, I tried to point the destructive firestick in the best possible direction. Straight above me, thick trees, boom wildfire. To my right, a guy sleeping on a bench, boom homicide. To my left, plants, boom wildfire. Behind me, people walking along the river, boom genocide. In front of me, cars, boom arson. SOMEHOW, the fireballs didn't hit anyone (albeit close), start any fires, OR draw the attention of any police. With my heart attempting to bruise my ribs and the mosquitoes trying to locate them beneath my skin, it seemed like a good time to get out of there. Here are some photos I took before nearly putting the fire in "Quinn, you're fired."

July Julie

Who ever said 'selfies' were only for Asians?

Julie's potato salad

We found the beef

4th of July spirit

Drawing U-S-A with sparklers!

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