Hah-ee-won (High1) Part 1

Friday Night about 10pm I discovered a couple of my friends (Phil [from Chesterfield, England], and Andrew [from Victoria]...they both work with Kyle) were going to go skiing for the weekend. After much humming and hawing (Insider access Matt's Brain....skiing is fun...I don't have winter clothes...we have friends coming to visit from Seoul...they're mostly here to see Amy....I should do this for the sake of branching out and forming relationships... I don't know either of the guys uber well, they're much more into partying and drinking than I am, maybe awkward, do they even want me to go??...I haven't skied since I was 15....they're probably going to leave me in the dust.....poor Kyle with four girls...you can't live your life to please everyone else....) ...I went. 

We didn't leave Wonju until 3am which those of you who know me real well will know I was real thrilled about. Got to a motel at about 5am and went to sleep. On the way I learned that High1 was supposedly Korea's best ski resort....better than Pyongchang (the runner up to Vancouver for host of the 2010 games) Considering that the mountains here top out at about 2,000m I was skeptical at best. [Motels here are uber cheap.....you can regularly get rooms (albiet of questionable comfort/cleanliness) 

for $30/night. One phenomenon of Korean society which I don't have time to explain in depth is that many young people go to these cheap "love motels" to get away from, um, watchful eyes. So cheap motels are abundant...if a little sleazy. ]

Anyways, I will summarize and write part two (some funny stories) tommorow. It was opening weekend, so the snow was nothing to write home about, half the runs weren't open, and  it was very busy (our second day in 2.5hours on the hill we got two runs in - literally faster to walk up the mountain...which we did) The hill was no better than Mt. Washington in terms of the hill itself. In facilities (a massive Casino, amazing luxury hotel, etc etc.) it was way better. I tried blade skies (the short skis) and it was fun. My skiing skill returned, and though the others were much faster I did fine.  There's something refreshing about the clean crisp mountain air, the bright snow....I love it. Random tidbit...the trees aren't evergreens...so it looked weird with all the dead sticks for trees.