So many things happened this past weekend that in this case, pictures speak way louder than words. Thanks to Sionna, every portion of the weekend was well documented. And I'm talking 400 photos worth of documented memories! You've got to love her for that! I will share a little for those who have not yet seen our snowboarding adventure.
So I left work Friday evening and headed straight for Sionna's apartment. Soon after I arrived, we went to the jimjilbong (which for now, I will spare you the details - but you should know it's a bath house). We laid around relaxing in shallow pools of green tea and sat in the best massage chairs you have ever experienced! $1.00 gets you 10 mins of pure bliss!! Then it was food time (mind you it is 2:00 am at this point, but hey! that is Korea for ya!) We all agreed upon some galbi (which is where you are served raw meat and you cook it yourself at your table) and then we parted ways with Sarah and Amber. Considering it was 3:30 am at this point, we decided since we had to wake up at 5:00 am, sleeping was out of the question. On to Home Plus we went in search of snacks for our big weekend in the snow. We purchased Soju, water, cookies, crackers, and LOTS of V-day candy (with all of us single and fabulous, we would just have to treat each other). We went back to Si's to pack and wait for the morning bus. Si's backpack was large and in charge to say the least as she chased little asian men walking down the street. We were laughing and shouting...you'd think we were on drugs! We arrived at the bus stop where the giggles continued as we performed our morning stretches in front of the 7-11 in our shades (even though it was still dark out). The bus finally arrived and we took our usual seats or the designated foreigner seats (in the very last row) and began yet another one of our rituals: singing classic songs from the 90s for all the early birds to hear.
It turns out we may have over guesstimated our travel time to the snowboarding bus as we arrived an hour early. So we decided it would be a great time to grab some morning coffee and breakfast. To our dismay, the streets were dark - no neon lights to be seen and the sun still had not risen. Desperate for caffeine at this point, we wandered back through the subway station looking for any glimmer of hope. Paulina put her nose to the test and found us a Dunkin Donuts in no time! You could imagine our excitement as we approached our 21st hour of being awake. The hour passed by quickly and on our way to meet Aaron and his new friend Karim, we heard a voice say, "Hey! You girls going on the ski trip? Can I follow ya'll?"
Meet our new friend Nikki. We found our guys, boarded the bus with Adventure Korea, and set out to Phoenix Park (somewhere north of Seoul) for the weekend. Before we knew it, we arrived at a rest stop where Sionna helped me bargain for new winter gloves with a street vendor. Soon after we arrived at the rental place where we picked up our gear, took snapshots in various funny hats, and made yet another friend - Adrienne (she happened to be Nikki's friend and they didn't know each other were going on the trip). We then finally arrived at Phoenix Park (about 2.5 hours later) met up with Mark and Andy, and hit the slopes. Most of us were around the same level, but Aaron and Mark seemed to be having a pretty tough time. We ended up splitting up, meeting another new friend - Jamie, and all tackled a black diamond slope together.
Soon we were exhausted and needed some "chill time". The 8 of us new found friends checked into our hostel (my first one ever) and took showers one by one with our itty bitty towels. Aaron and Karim went on the hunt for bottles of CASS and ended up coming back with small shot bottles of Jameson (oops!). Si and I were about on our 32nd wind and Paulina was out for the count. I looked around the room and noticed a problem - no table. So I constructed one from the TV stand and shelves in the closet while Sionna unpacked the essentials: big ass bottle of Soju, (1) silver kettle, (2) bottles of energy drink, paper cups, and toilet paper. (We used to be party planners for a living - we don't mess around!)
Eventually, we went out looking for dinner where we walked into not one but two places and quickly walked out of each (they didn't have exactly what we had in mind). We finally spotted a Popeyes Chicken joint and observed the BEST performance of "Hey Mickey" by 3 little Korean boys on one HUGE open mic night stage at the base of the hill. After cheering at the top of our lungs, we went back to the room to get our drink on.
The rest of the night turned out to be VERY random, adventurous, and oh so exciting!!! But I'll leave all of those memories to the many photos. I'd be here until July reciting all of the craziness. So thanks Si!! And what a VERY HAPPY Valentine's Day it was!!!
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