My first winter in Korea was my first winter in 5 years. The initial adjustment was difficult, dare I say bordering on traumatizing. But thankfully my 18 years in New England came through for me and I adjusted. Buying some thermal leggings and knock-off ugg boots helped as well. But god damn it was awful at first. Los Angeles, I hope you realized how very blessed you are.

Aside from trauma and freezing cold feet, winter does have its benefits. Primarily: SKI SEASON!!

Yes there is tons of skiing in Korea. Like, tons and tons of it. This whole peninsula is covered in mountains so it makes sense that they’d cut some trails into a few of them. I managed to get out skiing a couple times, which was pretty miraculous considering how exhausted I was after a week of teaching Korean school kids how to speak English.

The first weekend I went to a smaller resort in western Korea. For those who do not know, let me take this time to illuminate for you the geography of Korea.

Map of Korea with Taebaek Mountains in Red (wikipedia

In its western half  Korea is more “flat” which by Korean standards means peppered with small mountains. Then as you drive east the mountains get bigger and bigger and you enter the Taebaek Mountain Range. In there the towns are smaller, you finally lose sight of the army of huge apartment buildings that cover this country, and the landscape becomes breathtakingly beautiful.

So the first weekend I went skiing in the west. The resort was tiny, 6 trails and about as many lifts. Only one real expert slope, and to be honest it was an east coast (of the US) blue square. Still, I had a BLAST and in 3 hours of skiing I got in so many runs and was exhausted the next day.

View from the Top of the smaller Resort (Western Korea)

By the way, skiing in Korea is ridiculously easy. Many resorts have free shuttles to and from Seoul, you can rent all your kit for less than $30, and you can rent pants, a jacket, and goggles if you need. It’s really absurdly easy. And Korea is so crowded and overpopulated that they are GREAT at dealing with crowds. Even at a small resort there are almost more lifts than trails, so you never really have to wait in a long lift line. And you can buy lift tickets for just 3 hours, instead of purchasing a whole day and wasting half of it in the lodge!

So then this past weekend, I made a longer trip out to a resort in the Taebaek Mountains in the East called High1 Resort. I stayed in a hotel nearby that was really nice. Check out the view from my 11^th floor window!

I was lucky enough to have a friend at work take my only Monday class, so I stole a 3-day weekend for myself. I traveled on Sunday, and skied in Monday, so there was almost no one at the resort!

Me rocking rented jacket and goggles

The lodge of the resort was located in between 2 mountains, and there were lifts going up both and trails coming down on either side of this valley. On the one side were some advanced and intermediate trails, and that lift was slightly crowded. But on the opposite side there was a lift that only accessed 3 expert trails. They weren’t very long but they were super steep, wicked fun, and there was nobody on the lift. I almost had the trails to myself!

View of the other mountain, from the top of the expert zone

I spent the entire day on those 3 trails, only going on the other side once, decided it was boring, and went back to my private expert only zone. It was amazing!

Just to be clear: Skiing in Korea is hassle free, and awesome fun.

• You can easily rent all your gear, including snow pants, jackets, and goggles, for less than $30.
• You can buy a pass for the number of hours you want to ski, or for a whole day.
• There are free shuttles from Seoul to the nearby ski hills.
• There is night skiing.
• There are no lines, even when there are crowds.
• It’s cheap. It’s easy. It’s fun.

Alright so there is a recap of my skiing experiences. I have one more story to relate. High 1 Resort is also the location of Kangwon Land: the one and only Casino in Korea that lets in Korean Nationals.

That’s right.

There are casinos all over Korea, but they only allow in foreigners like me.

Except at Kangwonland. So of course I had to check it out.

First shocking fact: no alcohol. So in Korea, you can drink to excess, and you can gamble, but you cannot drink to excess and gamble at the same time. I even had to blow into a breathalizer before they let me in!

Once inside, no pictures allowed. So unfortunately I have no pictures for this part of the post.

The atmosphere inside was kind of dark and tense. Picture hundreds of Koreans all packed around tables looking really intense and losing all their money. If you know Koreans at all, you know that they are really tight with their money. It makes sense when you think about it; the nation only became wealthy recently. This is a people who are used to poverty and hard times. So they all seemed angry or at least upset, but at the same time… they weren’t cashing out.

Then on top of that, I was the only foreigner in the place. I was traveling with a Korean. My daily life includes people staring at me everywhere I go. It has become normal now and I don’t really notice it anymore. But being in this Casino was like my first week in Korea all over again. Every time I turned my head I made eye contact with a curious and possibly hostile Korean.

But the upside of this strange experience was that I gambled for the first time in my life. I played a slot machine and won the equivalent of $5. So ha ha, Korea, I win.

Megan xx