I was ready to take to the slopes again. Last time I only skied for half the time, this time I was ready to do it properly. I would even take on an intermediate slope, possibly, potentially, actually maybe not. Either way I really wanted to try skiing one more time.
I did loads of research which meant trawling through Korean and some English websites – mainly blogs, trying to piece together the cryptic guidance on how one gets to Muju to ski. Muju was supposedly relatively close to Gwangju and therefore, simple to get to. It was also doable without a tour through Enjoy Korea or Adventure Korea; and we could potentially do a day trip. This seemed pretty impossible as I started looking at the guidance online. Time and time again blogs suggested getting a Korean friend to book it for you. Although I did know Korean people and I knew my co teacher would help me, I didn’t want to have to ask and give them even more to do. I wanted to find a way to do this myself. So, as I was having a crazy time trying to get real information, I called them. God forbid.
This was a highly embarrassing phone call. Of course, they answered in Korean. Then came the moment they realised I was English. The silence on the other side showed their joy at this news. Cue being passed from person to person for half an hour until someone, probably the youngest person in the office, got lumbered speaking to me. After a very stilted but incredibly useful conversation, I hung up feeling ever so pleased with myself. I had, pretty much, got all the information I needed. I discovered that you could do a trip to Muju yourself and it wasn’t too expensive.
All in all, it would cost us about 110,000 won each. This included ski rental, clothing rental, buses to and from Gwangju and one lift pass. This also included a discount as we had a Nonghyup bankcard – you got about a 20% discount! This was great news to me and I only stumbled across this because the woman asked if I had a KB bankcard as they offer discount too. There were three lift slots, 8.30am, 12.30pm and 18.30. We opted for the 12.30pm as we were coming so far. The woman, who’s English and confidence seemed to improve throughout the call along with my ability to communicate clearly, also confirmed that we didn’t need to book in advance, we could just turn up. This all sounded brilliant so I quickly wrote a message with this info, before I forgot it all, to my friends who were interested.
We had to be quick about going though as the end of the season was sharply approaching and we had vacations coming up where a lot of us would be visiting other countries in Asia. We agreed on the first weekend in March which would be basically the last weekend of the season. We were cutting it fine but at least we were giving it one last shot.
In the run up to the weekend I tried to decipher the bus websites to book the bus from Gwangju. No such luck, the website informed me that it could only be booked on the day at the terminal. Bad news. I didn’t want us to all turn up super early to get a bus that was already full. One of my friends went to the bus terminal to check this was the case and reported back that it was. Some things in Korea feel so weird, like this. Why can’t I book a bus ticket on this specific bus before the day but for basically all other buses I can? Weird.We would have to risk it.
The day came and we rocked up to U Square Bus Terminal at 6.15am on Saturday the 4th March 2017 to get the 7.10am bus. We were not disappointed; there were loads of seats available to book. Would this be the case peak season though? I’m really not sure. After a lovely albeit warm 3 and a half hour sleep, we arrived at Muju Bus Terminal. The websites had clearly said that there was a free shuttle bus between Muju and Deogyusan Ski Resort (무주덕유산리조트스키장). There was but it was not a regular bus. The next bus was in 4 hours. This didn’t work if we want to be there for our planned 12.30pm ski. We were guided to the taxi rank and had no choice but to pay the 25,000 won taxi cost for the 40 minute trip. Luckily, there were a few of us which cut this cost. We had another couple join us from Daejon and it was a much shorter trip for them. Before leaving the terminal we checked the last bus back to Gwangju– 5.40pm. Brilliant, again, why? Why such an early last bus home? Good job we didn’t want to do the evening ski as we’d be staying the night.
Finally, we arrived at Muju and were taken to the only part of the resort that was closed by the taxi driver. Thank you very much. In all fairness, I think I did ask for this part of the resort as it was where the beginner slopes started from but he could have somehow let us know that it was closed and dropped us at the entrance that was actually open. Maybe I’m expecting too much though! After a 10 minute walk we got back to the open entrance and started to work out where to go next. It was all so simple! I couldn’t believe it.
First we got our tickets from staff that spoke pretty good English. My boyfriend and I paid together and in total we paid 87,000 won for two lift passes and ski rental for two. Not too bad I thought. We then went into the nearest building and there was a ski rental desk with no queue and a man who spoke very good English. He took my boyfriend’s ARC card as deposit for the skis and boots and ushered us to collect them. We then looked around for clothing rental and found a separate shop still within the same building. We had to pay extra for this but it wasn’t much, 10,000 won for the clothes and 3,000 won for the helmet. It’s all worth it to be kitted up properly.
We got ready, put our stuff in lockers (which if closed take your money so you have to be careful to only close it when you’re ready) and headed outside. It was 11.30am and we had an hour to kill before our lift time. I was so relieved. My biggest fear was it not working out or us being late for the lift slot and not having a decent amount of time for skiing. We had eight people in our trip all in all and I couldn’t believe that I’d actually managed to arrange a ski trip in Korea for us all and it work out. I was still holding my breath though until we got up there to the top and started skiing.
There were a few fast food outlets open and we got some much needed food before our lift time. The slopes towered up above us as we sat on the flat eating and watching the skiers and snowboarders slip delicately down the mountain. It was so quiet and whilst there were still quite a lot of people, it was nothing in comparison to how it had been at the beginning of the season at High One. There was also a lot less foreigners;I think I only saw one the whole time.
It was time. We headed to the bunny slope to remind ourselves how to ski! We also had a novice skier with us so we wanted to all start together. We got the super slow escalator up the hill to the top of the bunny slope and started our way down. There was hesitation from everyone to begin. I think it was that feeling of not knowing how to do it again. The fear of falling over had returned. Nonetheless, we headed off and I managed to get down without falling. Our first mission was complete. For the beginner in our group it wasn’t as fast a session and as we moved onto the next slope, we knew she would be practising on that slope for a while; after all, we’d spent most of the time on the bunny slope when we first started! Her boyfriend stayed with her and taught her so we felt it was ok for us to move on. Cue, my first time on a ski lift! After spending most of my time on the Gondola last time, I was happy to avoid it this time. I wanted to try the open air ski lift/chair lift. We queued and scanned our ski pass against the machine; it can read it through your clothes in your pocket so you don’t have to get it out every time.
We lined up in front of the chair which came in behind us and lifted us up into the air, ski’s still attached. The bar came down for us to hold onto and rest out skis on. As we moved slowly up the mountain, over the trees and the snow rocks that surrounded a trickling stream, I felt a mixture of happiness, relief and nerves. It had worked. I had managed to get us all out here skiing. Now though, I had to ski! When we reached the top, we all abruptly fell to the ground. You were supposed to ski straight off the ski lift. Well, we couldn’t do that it turned out. One of my friends got her ski pole caught in the bar as it came up to release us and it consequentially snapped in half and she fell. My other friend skied forward too fast and fell. I skied left to avoid her and I fell. Only my boyfriend didn’t fall and he looked back to a heap of legs, skis and sticks flailing about in the air, closely followed by another chair full of skiers ready to get off. Out of nowhere, a man lifted me up into skiing position and off I went. I looked back to see a little hut that had a member of staff in it and it was his job to pick up beginner skiers like us from the ground quickly so that it didn’t cause a pile up as the next lift came in. My boyfriend was laughing a lot as we managed to make our way over to him. Now though my friend who’d broken her pole had to get down the mountain with only one and a half poles!
We began though and managed to get the slope without terrible incident. I did at least. My friend got knocked over by a snowboarder right at the bottom. He had made it down the whole slope and then stopped at the bottom and a snowboarder careered into him, wiping him out. I had a fall or two and found the slope pretty difficult. It seemed more difficult than last time somehow, there were certainly steeper bits and there were more snowboarders than I remembered. Nonetheless, I did it and felt good at the end. We headed back up, this time to the top of the mountain. Apparently, Muju is famous for having the longest beginner’s slope in Korea and it winds around the mountain. This sounded ok to me as we headed to the top. I was surprised when we got the top to see just how steep some of the other slopes were. There were literally sheer drops off the side which were apparently slopes, expert certainly, but they were slopes nonetheless (see picture above – behind him is a slope!) Not for me. It was all I could do to ski along to the beginners slope without falling off down one of these expert slopes! Need I say that we all fell off the ski left again? There was a short length of ski lift that joined the middle slope to the top and we actually managed to do that final one! I was thrilled that I avoided making a fool of myself yet again.
We began the ‘beginners’ slope and straight away I started questioning the truth in that. It twisted and turned down the mountain with sharp, steep corners and highly skilled skiers and snowboarders zipping past us. After about 10 minutes on this slope and I started to swear. I crashed into the side of the mountain as if trying to go up it, if that’s even possible. I fell on pretty much every turn and I screamed every time someone else went by me. I began to seriously doubt this was a beginner slope as well as cursing myself for organising this trip. One of my friends and I had a similar pace on this slope and we found that stopping at each corner to regain composure worked well. It went on, twisting and turning but there became a rhythm to it that I could recognise and so I started to get a pattern to my skiing hence falling less. Suddenly, a snowboarder came out of nowhere and crashed into me, I may have been crashing anyway to be honest, but his board in the back of my knees made sure of it. I tumbled down the mountain, skis going left and right and poles shooting off. I sat up as I finally came to a stop and looked around me. My poles were in reach and I felt fine. I was shaken, but fine. I looked back to the snowboarder; he gave me the okay sign despite his goggles being half way up the mountain and his hat being half way down it. His friend collected his stuff and passed it to him and after another check that he was ok;I got up and carried on. My friend asked me if I was ok but I couldn’t answer him for fear of crying, I had been so shocked by the crash, I just had to ski off and recover. Finally, I found a little bank of flat where another one of my friends was and I slowed up to await the others. He’d actually taken a picture of me in action whilst I was making it to the bank to recover, my only skiing picture and I’m trying not to cry in it (pic below)!
Finally, I made it to the middle of the mountain where my boyfriend and friends had arrived first. They were all sat in the snow by the barrier. I skied skillfully into view and then tried to stop. After a spectacular crash landing, I got up. ‘That’s not a beginner’s slope!’I yelled across to them, I couldn’t physically get there. My boyfriend looked at the others guiltily and then back to me. ‘That’s because it’s not Em. It’s intermediate!’ he said. What?! I was not impressed. ‘Of course, it fucking is!’I yelled, quickly apologising to the Koreans around me. I was so surprised and kind of proud. I’d done an intermediate slope without even knowing it, and probably best I hadn’t known because I doubt I would have done it. My boyfriend explained to me that they hadn’t known until they were on the way up there and one of them had noticed on the leaflet that this whole mountain was intermediate. The only beginner bit was the part that we’d gone to earlier that was closed. Apart from the very short bunny run we’d done at the beginning, the rest was intermediate. Well, no wonder I was struggling!
We headed down the rest of the slope, the bit that we’d already done once before and it was still hard for me. The minute the bunny run was in sight, I sidled over to that for the last few metres. By the time we got to the bottom I was exhausted, my boots felt too tight and I was ready for that last bus home! Everyone agreed and as we had time, we sat in the sun with a celebratory beer. The weather was so good, it was 6 degrees so all our layers weren’t needed. I love winter in Korea, it’s sunny every day and this day was no different. It felt today like spring was coming even though we were surrounded by snow.
It felt so good to take the boots off which turned out had been too tight as they’d make blisters on my legs where my leggings had bunched up. Our friend who was a beginner had had a really good go and I hoped she might try again in the future. We got ourselves back to Muju Bus Terminal via taxi and collapsed on the last bus back to Gwangju. An amazing day out that we organised ourselves. My friends thanked me loads for all the organisation which I really appreciated as it’s not easy when you don’t speak Korean. I am just so happy it worked out and that I could try skiing one more time in Korea.