Day 5 + 6 : Winter wonderland in Yongpyong Ski Resort

For the next 2 days we spent our time skiing down the slopes at Yongpyong Ski Resort. The driver from Sally Tours came to pick us up at 9.30am and took us to the ski hire shop where we got our ski boots and ski blades. At the Yongpyong Tower where we got dropped off, we went to the locker area to store our bags away. It costs 500W to use one for the whole day, and there's conveniently an auto bill exchanger nearby.

Once we exited the double auto doors leading to the snow, our eyes were blinded but our spirits were still high as we commenced our skiing day! There are 3 wide beginner areas in the resort, and the Sally Tours also provide a quick beginners class for the first day...which we didn't go to cause we realised it had already finished. But nevertheless, we were able to survive our way down the slopes without any serious injuries, even down the intermediate ones. As for the expert slopes...we preferred to admire them from far...

Below is the ticket we had to clip onto ourselves in order to use the ski lifts.

Near the entrance into the Tower, there's a station where you can use high-pressure air guns to blow off the snow from your ski blades and boots.

For meals and breaks, there are food stalls and a food court off to the side near the resort hotels.

 

By storing our skis in a storing bay nearby (it's 500W to lock them but we didn't bother), we wondered around the food area, awkwardly stepping down the steps in our chunky ski boots, and discovered food stalls like below selling snacks consisting of chicken skewers, corn, Spanish doughnuts, hot dogs, kebabs, octapus balls and pretzels.

One of the food courts we went into was Dragon Plaza, where we can buy hot or cold drinks and sandwiches from a cafe or a regular Korean meal. The hot drinks cost around 5000W, whilst cold drinks were 6000W.

 There is also another smaller food court nearby on the very east side of the resort. Below is a pork cutlet and rice with salad meal, and a bowl of udon with tempura.

There are also restaurants into the Tower, such as Lotteria, a chain similar to McDonalds but owned by Lotte. As you can see there are stands for people to place their skis on before entering to eat.

Instead of fries, they have deep fried cheese sticks. They also have bulgolgi beef burgers which were really nice to try.

It's a very bad photo, but below is the counter where you can book bus tickets back to Soul. Just for reference =) It in the Tower near the doors towards the snow.

 

On our 2nd night at Yongpyong, we decided to buy dinner from the grocery store in the Tower and make it in the little kitchen in our room.We bought a packet of kimchi which is supposed to be used to make soup, but since it was our first time we didn't add enough water so it was super mega salt ^^'' Ok so it wasn't a real proper dinner, but we filled our bellies with lots of snacks and alcohol (rice wine and blueberry? wine) like all youngins do when they're on holiday away from families ;)

On the day we left Yongpyong, the bus picked us up at 5pm. We handed our hired boots and skis back to the Sally workers and the husband of the owner brought our packed bags to us, read to board the bus. The trip back to Jamsil went for 3.5 hours due to traffic, and once we were dropped off, we took the taxi to our new apartment. Again we found this place on Airbnb [https://www.airbnb.com.au/rooms/2042935]. As you can see it's very clean with a neat kitchen, and the building's security is very secure so there's no need to worry about leaving important belongings in the room when you're out.

For dinner, we went out to the main road where there were a couple of restaurants nearby. We chose a restaurant that had rice soup served boiling hot in a stone pot, and a plate of dried up pieces of pork. No idea what they actually were, but the taste was quite interesting...

Day 4 : Time for the snow!

As the title suggests, it was time to head to the snow! We booked via 'Sally's Tour' which was advertised on the main Korean tourism website for the 2 night package at YongPyong Ski Resort. The resort will be used for the next Winter Olympics games in 2018, so we wanted to see how it was like. The company sent us a rough itinerary of our activities weeks beforehand, and images of where to meet them once we arrive at the resort, so everything was well prepared. We were picked up by their driver early in the morning and driven to the front of Jamsil Lotte Mall which was a common pick up and drop off stop for tour buses. The tour bus itself was a separate company (Daewon Travel Co), so it picks up people who've joined through a tourist company or paid for the service themselves. 

The bus left at 9am and arrived at the resort around 11.30am.

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We were dropped off at YongPyeong Tower, where inside were restaurants, a food mart, resort rooms, and various other entertainment facilities. Mostly importantly though, we would be crossing through this building to the ski area for the next 2 days.

The worker from Sally's Tour waited for us at the tower to drive us in his van to our villa a few minutes away from the resort. Well I say few minutes because the car was speeding like a bullet train across town and the driver's foot was having tremendous fun with the acceleration pedal...although he did assure us that he has years of experience driving around here.
Once we arrived at the villa, named the Wildflower, we marvelled at the cute housing amongst the semi snow-covered hill country. Despite the number of stairs that we had to climb with our heavy luggage, the interior was stunning to come across.

 

The wall paintings and decorations were all decorated by the owner, who lives with her husband in the same building. There were lots of miming and usage of smartphone apps that helped us communicate with each other, but the owner was a very sweet and nice lady. She made sure that we were comfortable with our quarters, gave us instant noodles each for breakfast, and even let us try on her handmade hanbok which used to belong to her daughter for photos! The wooden floors were constantly heated too.

 For the first day at YongPyeong skiing wasn't covered, so I had plenty of time to take photos and admire the scenery outside the villa.

Now on the topic of food. Before I mention what we had for dinner, I was introduced to this extraordinary, addictive banana milk that is very popular amongst the locals. It comes with other flavours like strawberry and melon, but banana is above all the must try when you come to Korea. It's very easy to find, just enter any convenience store and they should have it in their beverage fridge. Cost wise I think it was around or under $1

Because the villa was situated away from town, the owner's husband offered to drive us down and drop us off for dinner. The restaurant was for table top bbq, which is ever so popular in Korea. In one half of the restaurant was like a supermarket area where you pick the type of meat and vegies you like and pay at the counter. Then you bring the products over and cook it on the bbq. 

Since it was our first time, we chose a stack of shabu shabu beef but later realised what a bitch it was to peel off and cook.What we should've gotten was the nice thick beef stakes that most people seemed to have bought, although they do cost more. We also got mushrooms and onions, and a couple of beef sausages (which were my favourite of the night). We could also freely refill the chilly sauce, lettuce leaves, peppers and most of the side dishes along the way.