Muju Ski Resort

For the weekend after Christmas I got on a bus and went across my province to a town called Muju, where there is a huge ski resort. It was really cold, but very beautiful, lots of Koreans skiing, sledding, drinking, and various other resort activities. I went with Elizabeth and her husband Jimmy. We went sledding, rode a snowmobile, went for a dip in an outdoor heated pool, where you could see the slopes from the pool, we drank, and enjoyed the beautiful mountain views from the ride up the gondola. I didn't ski this time but will definitely make a trip back to ski the next time.



More pretty mountains in the city of Muju, next to the ski resort.





This is from the top of the mountain after riding he gondola up. It was really cold up there, but the views were amazing. There was also a small shelter/mini-temple you could hang out in along with restaurants, ski lifts, hiking trails and a view of the city. We had some lunch, some beer and sake and then went back down by the gondola.









This was an excessively hot aroma therapy, notice the dark green water, hot tub, with a Korean dude in it. You could only stay in it a few minutes, because it was sooo hot, but it really made your skin soft and the overall experience of the pools was very relaxing and quite rewarding. I was waiting for someone to come up to the side and start adding carrots and potatoes, like we were a big meal!



This was the semi-warm swimming pool, notice no one was swimming in it when I took the picture. It was 20 degrees outside, with loads of snow just to the left, a beginner slope travels right by the pool, so not ideal swimming conditions in a pool that wasn't heated like a hot tub. If anyone went in this pool, it was for a short period of time and there was a lot of movement involved. Both Jimmy and I did braze it, just to say we did, but not for long, it was quite a shock and tingling to the body to back and forth.



This was the hot spring pool, designed like it was in the middle of the mountains, with big rocks around and a rock style bottom, really cool. If you stay in the hotel resort, it doesn't cost anything to use the pool, if not, it was about $10 US dollars and about $2 to rent a suit and it was well worth it. I imagine after being sore from skiing, it would be the perfect remedy.



On the gondola, going up the mountain.



On the snowmobile, getting ready to go for my ride.



On the snow sled, sledding was fun!!









The resort was pretty at night, it even had a working carousal.









There was also a winery there, this is me, pretending to drink from huge bottle of wine. There was also a cool map of the world made out of corks.





This is a very famous dish in Korea, called bim bim bap. It is usually made out of just different vegetables, rice, seaweed, and a fried egg, but this one has pork too. You put a small amount of this hot paste and mix it all up real good, and it is very tasty, or mushiseyo! We had this particular bim bim bap in Jeonju for lunch on our way to Muju.

Christmas Celebration

Even 6000 miles away from home and family, I have been blessed with many friends in the Gunsan area and they all made my Christmas special and one to remember for sure. Christmas eve, about 15 of us went over to my good friend and neighbor, Joanna's house for a 14 course meal complete with turkey, appetizers, soup, and desserts. She is polish, so I am in love with potato polish salad. It was good times, good food, and a nice way to spend Christmas eve. We even had a fun gift exchange game at the end of the night,I ended up with a Johnny Depp DVD called "Public Enemies."

On Christmas day, I woke up to some wonderful leftovers from the day before and my friend Joanna stayed over, so neither of us were alone on Christmas morning as no one should be. Joanna gave me a bunch facial packets and some other beauty products for Christmas, bringing it back from her house, like she was Santa delivering gifts, she is sweet.

We then went over to another one of our friends locally to visit, eat some more, and drink wine. We had music, good company, pizza, and dancing and card playing. There was about 10 of us and we had a blast.



This was the early group Christmas day at Jocelyns...Merry Christmas everyone!!



This is Me, Aaron, Eric, and Joanna on Christmas day. These are all teachers in the Gunsan area.



This was a silly picture, Aaron had put on some crazy outfit and we all made a funny pose. The girl in the pink is Jocelyn, she is from England and the Christmas party was at her house. She also teaches in the Gunsan area.



Aaron and Eric, good looking guys, huh!



This is Joanna and Jim Oh. Jim Oh actually lives in New York, but is Korean. He was visiting his family for the holidays and ended up at our Christmas party because of mutual friends. We had some good conversations about sports, since we are both big baseball fans.



This is Aaron, Alexander, and Sarah at Joanna's on Christmas eve. I have no idea what Alexander is laughing at, but it was all good times for sure. Aaron is from Cleveland, Sarah is from New Zealand, and Alexander is from San Francisco, all teachers in the Gunsan area.



This is Kenton and I at Joanna's Christmas Eve. Kenton is from Canada and is also a teacher in Gunsan.



This is Me, Elizabeth, who is from South Carolina, Jocelyn, and Elizabeth'a dog that her husband brought from the states when he arrived a few weeks ago. They both will be teaching out here in Gunsan. Having the dog there made me miss my Jezzy!!



Me, Joanna, and Sarah.



The FOOD!!

Seoul with My Cousin

My first trip to Seoul was a WILD one to say the least. The bus from Gunsan to Seoul only takes about three and half hours. I met up with my cousin, April, one of my Mom's sister's kids. It had been close to 20 years since I last saw her and it was an interesting weekend filled with catching up, meeting other foreigners, and lots of drinking. We ate at a few different western restraunts, including both Outback and Subway. It was nice having a filet, or a real steak, you can't really find that where I live in Gunsan. I found that Seoul really caters to the foreigners with lots of western restrauants and lots of things in English. Probably because there are thousands of foreigners living in that area. Everywhere I looked, I saw foreigners, where in Gunsan, we are more of a novelty. You see someone in Gunsan that is not Korean and you want to start a conversation with them, to find out if they teach or work on base, and how long they have been in the area, and share information. In Seoul, it is quite the opposite, since there are soo many, the bars and streets were like back home as far as the diversity of people in them. I got to experience the subway system too, got lost a few times and took the wrong subway train, got off at the wrong stops, but I had a great time in Seoul. When I left Gunsan, we had a foot of snow and blizzard like conditions, as you saw in my last post. When I arrived in Seoul, there was no snow and it was 20 degrees colder with a bone chilling wind. One of the things to do besides go to the night clubs or bars in Seoul is to shop, especially hitting all those outside shops on the streets of Seoul, where you can get some really good bargains. But it was just too cold for both April and me to shop outside. We literally were frozen from walking just a few blocks. We ended up at the I-Park mall, which had endless levels of shopping, but more expensive prices. April at least found the boots that she wanted. All in all it was an intersting first Seoul experience and I will travel there again, in fact, we are planning on ringing in the new year out there.

I will post some pictures later.