[Winter Korea Trip 2010/2011] Day 12: Vivaldi Park Skiing & Myeongdong Part 1

Remember the day J brought us to Vivaldi Park near his hometown of Yangdeokwon to have a sneak-peak at its skiing-facilities? Well, this would be the day we returned to spend an entire afternoon Skiing! For those clueless as to what I have just mentioned, I was referring to our experience from Day 6.

Daemyung Vivaldi Park Ski World is one of several ski-resorts that South Korea has to offer. Instead of visiting the highly-commercialized Yongpyong Ski-resort mainly for tourists, we decided to go for a more local feel and experience at Vivaldi Park. Located within the mountains of Gangwon-do, it is about a 2-hour drive from Seoul. 

 To get to the resort, we had 2 options to choose from - a shutter bus that would take us direct to the ski-resort but would only depart late morning, or rely on common public transport. We chose the latter because we felt it would make a more interesting journey, and we might have a chance to reach there earlier too!

Departing from our "home" rather early in the morning , we began our journey from Dong-Seoul Bus Terminal. We had to travel to Hongcheon first which would serve as our transit stop before hopping onto yet another bus to get us to Vivaldi Park.

Dong-Seoul Bus Terminal

Perhaps we had already gotten quite familiar with intercity bus journeys, we were able to purchase our bus tickets without much difficulty unlike during our first few days here. However, we had missed the bus by just a tiny bit and had to wait at the terminal for the next bus (boarding time was about 45mins later).

Ticket to Hongcheon

 

With some time to spare, we decided to have our breakfast at Lotteria, one of South Korea's indigenous fast food chain before boarding our bus. Thank goodness it wasn't as bad as our previous fast food experience. Though I have completely forgotten what we had ordered, it definitely left a positive impression. The fries was especially crisp!

Lotteria @ Dong-Seoul Bus Terminal

What we ordered. Sadly I can't remember what it is called >.<

Bus to Hongcheon

Arriving at Hongcheon Bus Terminal, we headed straight for the ticketing counter as soon as we alighted. We purchased our bus tickets for the next earliest bus ride for the 2nd leg of our trip which costed 3,500won (~$4.10) each. We ended up having just enough time to take a short toilet break before we had to continue on with our journey.

 Hongcheon Bus Terminal

Ticket to Vivaldi Park

Into the valleys and mountains we go!

So, was public transport actually a better option over the shutter bus? Answer is no! Despite us setting off from our "home" much earlier than if we were to take the shutter bus, we arrived at Vivaldi park at approximately the same time as the shutter bus would. The waiting time for both buses and also the alighting and boarding of commuters at random stops along the way took a toll on time. But oh well, who cares? We had arrived at our destination anyway, and it was time to have some fun!

 Vivaldi Park

 Looking through the different ski packages and time slots available at the ticketing booth, we decided on the afternoon 12:30pm to 5pm slot. At 52,000won (~S$61.10) per pax for the cost of a ticket inclusive of ski equipment rental, we felt the pinch of cost even though we had already expected the activity to be an expensive one

Ticketing Booth

 Ski-facilities usage pass/ticket - it must be displayed at all times

Rental tickets

With our tickets purchased, we proceeded into the main hall where the lockers and ski equipment rental counters are housed. As we collected our equipment, we did a quick check on them to make sure they were all in good working order. Well, we wouldn't want to realize that something was not right only when we got to the top of the hill or worst, be made to pay for damages not even caused by us.

We happened to visit the resort during the beginning of the school holidays and the place was rather crowded with many school-goers on vacation. As such, it took us quite awhile to find a locker despite the place having rows and rows of them. With our belongings safely locked away, it was time to head out into the snow!

Ski equipment collection counters

The Vivaldi Park Ski facility features numerous slopes of various difficulty levels to cater to all skiers. Be it just a beginner who is just starting out, or a seasoned professional seeking a high speed trill, there is something for everyone. Not to worry, there are gondolas to bring you up the slopes and cable cars if you have the guts to challenge the extremely high, steep, mountain slopes.

Now that's a lot of skiers around!

There were many ski classes going on for both kids and young adults and we managed to learn a thing or two by spying *ahem* observing them =P. Here are some important tips to take note:

1) When skiing down a slope, you would need to maintain your skis in a V-shape alignment like an arrow pointing forward. To slow down your rate of descend, all you would need to do is to widen the rear of the V shape to add more resistance. This is very crucial to maintaining control over yourself during the descend. A lack of control would probably result in you accelerating so fast you would easily flip, trip and kiss the snowy ground or crash into something/someone in your path.

2) When you find yourself losing control or when you anticipate an unavoidable obstacle in your way during the descend, fall sideways immediately. The snow is soft so it won't hurt you. It is better than hitting head-on with something, trust me.

3) If you do fall, remove your skis before attempting to get up. It is very hard to get into a standing position with your skis from a sitting position unless you have big muscles. Then again, you could twist your ankle rather easily too.

4) Supposedly you have taken off your skis and intend to put them on again somewhere along the slope after a fall, align your ski perpendicular to the direction of the slope first unless you would like to end up doing a perfect split on the snow.

Because it was our first time skiing, we chose to begin with the slope for absolute NOOBS. It wasn't hard to get the hang of skiing after trying several rounds and we soon wanted something more challenging. 

After about an hour on Noob's Hill, we decided to move on to the next level which seemed slightly steeper. Although it appeared not to have any significant jump in level of difficulty at first glace, it sure had >.<. It turned out that even a slightest increase in slope gradient had a detrimental effect on acceleration. As I attempted the slope, I could barely slow myself down despite my best efforts to do so and ended up speeding down so fast that I lost control and fell halfway down the slope. Although X managed to maneuver himself successfully and avoid the many human obstacles along the way,  he too went so fast he couldn't brake in time and crashed at the foot of the slope. Ouch.

Oh well, we didn't want to risk spending the remaining of our trip in a hospital so we went back to Noob's Hill and spent the rest of our time there =)

 Ooooo.. look! A pro guy attempting the God-like difficulty slope!

 Opps, Maybe not =(

Having so much fun playing around, time seemed to pass rather quickly =(. It was a great experience though and we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly during these short few hours! Before returning our ski equipment to the counter, it was basic courtesy to use the air gun placed outside the main resort building to blow off any snow bits stuck stubbornly to the corners of our skis.

We headed to the parking area as soon as we were done with our checkout to catch the direct bus back to Seoul. Feeling exhausted from all the physical exertion, we couldn't help but sleep through the entire journey back to Seoul. Surprisingly, it took only about and hour and a half to get back! Darn! We should have taken the shutter bus from the beginning. ZZzz...

 Bus back to Dong-Seoul Bus Terminal

Finally after taking so many occasional but unintentional sneak peeks at Myeongdong for the past few days, we would finally get to dedicated the night just shopping on its flamboyant streets! Just as I had thought, Myeongdong did not disappoint me one bit! It was here that I had the best shopping experience in Korea. In fact, I loved Myeongdong so much I re-visited the place several more times over the next few days!

 Myeongdong Subway Station

Since we had all agreed to return to Myeongdong on another day when we would have more time, we decided to just use our first visit to take a look around at what Myeongdong has to offer and return another day to do the actual shopping and buying.  There was just too much to see!

Unlike Namdaemun and Dongdaemun, the streets of Myeongdong are lined with rows of shop-houses that focus mainly on fashion and beauty products catered more towards the teenagers and young adults age group. Myeongdong has also lots of eateries and small restaurants along the streets for the many visitors to have their meals. The vibrant, happening and happy atmosphere at Myeongdong, coupled with the Christmassy-spirit definitely made it a place to fall in love with easily!

I am sure many of us have heard of Myeongdong being famous for skin-care boutiques. Even with prior-knowledge of this fact, I was shocked to see the number of such boutiques flooding the Myeongdong streets! Face Shop, Missha, Skin Food, Etude House, innisfree, Hanskin! OMG they were everywhere. Several branches of certain brands were not even 20 meters apart!

If by the time you get here on your itinerary, and find that you still have lots of cash to spend, this is one vicinity you SHOULD spend your money in. Facial masks that would normally cost S$3-5 per piece in Singapore would cost you only less than a dollar in Myeongdong, or anywhere else in Korea for that fact! Except that Myeongdong packs its stores with loads of discounts and freebies! With the year-end sale season going on, face masks were going at 800won (~S$0.95) per piece and they come with TONS of free samples and cosmetics when you buy in bulk! Pretty sales girls are also commonly sighted in front of such boutiques announcing discounts at the top of their voices, enticing passersby to patronize the boutique by handing out FREE face masks!

We decided to have our dinner at a random restaurant along the way as we were getting rather hungry and tired. We did feel a little bad because it was quite late already and the restaurant was about to close for the night >.<. Nevertheless, the kind lady owner welcomed us warmly into her store and recommended us some of her dishes. How nice of her! C and I chose to have the Spicy BBQ Pork Rice set while X chose the Udong set. Fearing it might not be enough for 3 extremely hungry souls, each of us ordered an additional Pork Katsu to go along with our main course. Frankly, the taste was aaallllright but I give 5 stars for service! =)

 

 Udong Set

 SpicyaBBQ Pork Rice Set

Pork Katsu

It was really late by the time we finished our meal. The fact that we were already physically exhausted and drained led us to a mutual consensus to call it a day and head "home". We desperately needed a very good rest! ZZZZzz... 

For those interested in learning more about Myeongdong, do stay tuned to our later days when we continued our exploration of Myeongdong =)