Finally!! Been waiting for this since forever LOL
I woke up at 6am (surprise surprise i woke up) and had to drag myself off the bed. The Korean girls that were bunking in just reached home at this time and one of them asked me for a shirt to borrow. I almost didn’t want to lend her cuz i don’t like them veyr much, but I did anyway and i prayed she would return it cuz it was an SMU shirt and i loved that shirt LOL.
Dragged myself off the bed, skipped breakfast and trudged to Hapjeong station and made it with time to spare. Met Zenn by coincidence and we got breakfast at a nearby convenience store.
Finally met the rest of the exchange kids! From SNU mostly though, so me and Zenn were just at one corner deciding how to join the conversation. We took the free shuttle bus at Gwanghwamun and the ride took about 40 min tops. Before i could even sleep we alr reached!
Gwanghwamun is famous for its palaces but haven’t gotten a chance to explore yet 😡
Jisan Resort~
We decided to wait till afternoon because it was alr 930 and a good one hour would be gone by the time we have suited up. We nua-ed in the canteen and bought really expensive food hahah.
Korean food always looks so good tho?!
We discussed about whether we should ski or snowboard and in the end it was only Nicole and I who decided to try snowboarding, Nicole mostly because she thought snowboarding was less taxing on her healing ankle. We only paid 33,000 won ($39) for the entrance + equipment as there was 50% citibank cards and enough people in the group had them!! 😀 The jacket and pants rental was only 12,000 won ($14~) so altogether we only spent a little over $50 for 4 hours of skiing/snowboarding!! SUPER WORTH IT i would totally go more often if i had time and a citibank card LOL.
Me posing before i knew what i was signing up for.
I learned very soon that snowboarding is as tough as it looks LOL. It was so tough trying to balance and I learned it the hard way. If I went straight down i would go too fast, and everytim i try to turn the board to brake i either fall before i succeed or i brake too suddenly and tumble. I had the most dramatic types of falls that day and probably the most times i’ve fallen in a few years. I’ve tumbled, rolled, leap-fell, head-over-heels-fell, somersaulted etc basically all the stunts that would seriously injure me if i wasn’t in the snow. At one point my head started ringing because I fell too hard down the slope and my hands were stinging from the cold and everything hurt :< I was so frustrated I googled to see if i was doing it correctly and found that i was supposed to keep my left leg in front instead of at the back. That’s actually the most common style, rarely do people use their right leg in front -_- I tried again the other way and it was a bit better, but still tumbling.
The slope isn’t even steep gdi mich you gotta buck up
“Calm the fuck down” #relevant
I rested after I made my way ONCE down the slope LOL and sat down with Zenn who kinda gave up cuz she hates extreme sports. You tried gurl, you tried. After resting and cooling down (was sweating man), I decided to go up once more. It’s a good thing I did, because suddenly I figured it out. Just like that. I didn’t do any thinking or deep pondering while i was resting but somehow my body figured it out. I figured out how to keep the board slanted to slow myself down, how to come to a stop, and how to steer left and right. All of a sudden i was doing it rather nicely, and the times i fell down were on purpose if i was going too fast and couldn’t brake on time. YAY!
At the end of the day i couldn’t decide if i liked skiing or snowboarding better haha.
I MISSED CURRY SO MUCH crey we ate at a Korean style food court after that at Gwanghwamun. In Korean style food courts, you have to order at the cashier and they’ll give you a receipt or in some cases, a device reflecting your queue number. The menu is divided into the different stalls and you have to take note which stall you ordered from, and keep watching the queue number reflected at the top of that stall. Korean food court stalls are usually large open kitchens and the counters are used only to serve food, so it looks clean and empty. Will try to get a picture of it soon.
Zenn and I also found out that SM The Ballad was still promoting so we dropped by KBS building to see if the notice is up. We also had some coffee and HTHT’ed, it was a great session :’) We didn’t manage to see the notice so we went home earlier.
OTW back to the hostel, I met these two girls who stopped me and asked if I was a student. Upon discovering I was a foreigner, they spoke to me in English and talked about really weird things like karma and fortune. I was freaked out and i held onto my bag tightly in case this was a case of teamwork robbery. I had no idea what was their end goal?? Do they want me to consult them and pay? Do a survey? idk. I was tired from falling everywhere and now you’re gonna tell me about my karma?? :< I got scared as it was late so i told them i really needed to go off. Luckily they let me off and i made it back safe in the dorm phew.
That was my only creepy encounter so far in Korea. Hongdae streets are always alive at night so I never felt worried returning home late. Anyways that was my last night in Mamas and Papas Hongdae Guesthouse since I’m moving into the dorm!
darmawanders 
