02 Mar 2007

Even Has It's Own Travel Bag, Courtesy Of My Mom

We finally land in Incheon somewhere around 6.30am (Korean Time), crossing time zones and even dates, to find gloomy skies and rain that greeted Amy when she stepped out to test the temperature. We were supposed to meet a representative that was able to speak Mandarin about an hour after we landed, and so first thing we did was shop. We went straight to a convenience store and bought ourselves bowl noodles (how Asian, but when in Korea...) and calling cards as our phones both didn't work. Time just zipped by and we had to find the rep who had given us instructions to meet at some bank, but no one seemed to know where we were supposed to be headed. We finally find her in some quiet little corner and she couldn't have picked a better place to get kidnapped in. Seriously, for such a big airport and with so many food outlets that had English names, she had to pick a bank, which no one seem to have heard of, that was located at some dingy little corner. To make it worse, she led us to the van that was supposed to bring us to town and from the dingy corner, she just made us walk all the way back to where we came from. Seriously I could've killed her if more people spoke English, but that wasn't the case and she was our only lifeline at that moment in time.

We head out to get into the van for the ride to Seoul and the rep just stands there like she's enjoying the cool temperatures while Amy and I were trying to keep our fingers alive. The cold just hits you and takes hold of your fingers first and wearing gloves didn't help much either. To top off the cold temperature, it was really windy and was raining rather heavily too. So not only were we being chilled, we were being sprayed with mist as well. By this time I was too tires and too frozen to take pictures.

We get into a heated van and were taken for a really long ride to Seoul. It took about 2 hours and I nodded off a few times along the way, seeing that I didn't sleep on the plane, I really needed a bit of recharging. It was just really dull anyway... looked like Korea lacked colour on it's buildings... even if there was colour, it just looked drabby. We finally reach Seoul and are transferred to a coach that would take us all the way to the Yong Pyong ski resort. As it was rather empty, Amy and I took separate seats and once again I slept. It starts to get cold in the bus and the change in temperature wakes me up, only to be greeted by the sight of snow-covered mountains beyond the dead-looking trees on the side of the road. That's when I finally woke up, with my personal battery recharged, and started snapping pics again.

Ohhh A Bit Of Colour!

Then as we neared the resort, we started seeing civilisation once more, and a little colour compared to Seoul and the way up to Yong Pyong. There was an area that looked like the main town of that part of Korea where there were quite a number of shops renting or selling ski equipment or cars that gave me a good indication we were nearing the resort. Along with the businesses were the fish being dried along the river, most of which were covered with the blue plastic sheets. A few more turns up the roads and we were greeted by apartments along both sided of the roads, and the frozen pond that looked like one could ice skate on. We finally stop and were told to get off the bus but weren't even told where to go or who to look for if we needed help, which was one thing we really needed.

Just Next To The River....


Fish Being Dried In The Cold


Frozen Pond @ The Entrance To The Resort

I stood guard with our luggage in the cold while Amy checked if we were at the right place, and we were told to wait in the lobby while the rep from the hotel came to get us. The guy comes and he doesn't say much except to follow him and he kidnaps my bag upon seeing that I had to help Amy with her other bag along with the 2 I had. After we checked into our room, we were supposed to go for our very first ski lesson but we were just too tired and hungry to do anything. So we told the rep, Mr Lim, that we had to take a rain-check on the ski lesson and started to explore the surroundings of the hotel while looking for something to eat.

Can See She Slept On The Plane....


Trying To Put On My Glove While My Glasses Were Slipping Off.

After a disappointing, and really expensive, bowl of udon, we went out and checked out the slopes as well as the buildings next to the hotel and what they had inside. Looking at the slopes, we were wondering where we would be brought to during our ski lessons and how high up we have to travel up on the ski lift. Looking at the people getting on the ski lift already made us nervous, and then I saw a couple who go on the ski lift, one person on almost each end of the chair and it toppled to one side because the guy was heavier. That really scared the 2 of us and at least gave us an inkling of what to do when it was our turn. After we got bored with the surroundings, we decided to take a nap before we would go down for dinner. However after our nap went on too long and made us too late for dinner as they already cleared the place and we were supposed to have a buffet dinner with members of some tour groups. Well we were left with our only option to get our own dinner and that was at one of the hotel's restaurants. We got a set for two and ended up getting our own buffet spread to choose from. Joining us had to be the weird one in the hoodie, that just sat at the corner of the table watching us eat. 

Wondering If We Were Gonna Ski Down That Slope...






View From Our Room


Amy Thinks I'm A Terrorist.


Joining Me For Dinner When Amy Couldn't Make It.

After dinner, we were out again to check out how the place looks at night as well as venture up towards the ski slope to check out the snow. Sadly the rain had made everything into slushy ice, just like tons of uncoloured and cola slurpee strewn all over the floor. How disappointing to know that it was as good as walking on ice-kachang. From the very first day, Amy was on the hunt for all the locations she could take pictures regarding the Winter Sonata drama series. First one was in the morning where she was talking about a bench but it didn't have a significant sign like other locations so she skipped that one. She even had a map of all the spots that had the Winter Sonata filmed at!! The first one photo session was then the one just opposite the entrance of the hotel but it was a different bench from the one earlier. Worse part of it all was having to pose the bear for the pics! "No no, chin up, to the right... your right... a little left, thaaat's it! Ready... Smile!"

Brrrr... Baby It's Cold Outside.


Amy's Winter Sonata Location Shot 1

We went to sleep rather late the night before because the excitement haven't wore off and they had something really funny on tv as well.