Author: Sara

After a Covid-enforced break of nearly three years, we’ve just spent three days skiing (Sara) and snowboarding (Oli) in YongPyong, Korea’s oldest and largest ski resort. YongPyong’s main claim to fame is that it served as the Alpine Technical venue during the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, hosting the slalom and giant slalom events. We were excited to find our snow legs again and experience skiing on another continent – our first time outside Europe. It turns out that nearly everything is different to skiing in the Alps…

the ski Resorts are easily accessible

Our resort was about 15 minutes by road from the nearest high-speed train station. We couldn’t quite believe how large, easy and ‘normal’ the roads into the resort were – no snaking up a precarious mountain road for an hour here! On our return journey, our shuttle bus passed through another resort on the way to the station, and this was a quick five-minute detour, so it wasn’t just our resort that was easy to access. We did wonder how much this had to do with hosting the Winter Olympics – I assume easy access is a big bonus but I can’t quite imagine it’s this good everywhere the Olympics goes.

Resorts are much smaller

We picked YongPyong because it’s Korea’s largest resort, but it was still only the size of a (very) small European resort – at 13.6 km, it hardly compared to the 300 km of pistes available at Tignes/Val d’Isère, for instance. I’m not quite sure what possessed us to go in early December – the resort had been open just a few days and they hadn’t yet had their first big snowfall. This meant that there were only a couple of runs open (that had been snow-cannoned).

We were rarely out of sight of the village while skiing so it didn’t feel very intrepid, but at least coffee was never far away. By the middle of the first morning, we’d skied everything that was open – more than once!

The food is exciting and affordable

We ate lunch a couple of times in a food court in the resort. We ordered all meals from a single, multi-lingual self-service machine, then picked them up from separate chefs – choices included Korean, Japanese, Turkish and the ominous, vaguely-named ‘Western’. It was possible to get a full meal (with soup and veg sides) for around 13,000 KRW (about £8) – so certainly cheaper than in the Alps. We also thought that the selection was much more inspiring! It definitely beat the half-frozen brie and ham baguettes that we normally eat as a picnic when we ski…

The piste names are even more mysterious

If, like us, you’ve ever struggled to make sense of a piste map in a large European resort, let me present to you the piste names in YongPyong, which seemed to be expressly designed for maximum confusion. Red and New Red were both red (intermediate/advanced) runs – so far, so good. But then there was Red Paradise, which was actually a blue (beginner/intermediate) run and Blue, which was actually a red run. Meanwhile, Pink was a green (beginner) run, Rainbow Paradise was a blue run but Rainbow 1-4 were red runs. What?!

Health and safety is taken very seriously

We talked before about the number of warning and instructional signs on display in South Korea, and this was never more apparent than while we were skiing. In particular, skiing after drinking alcohol and smoking on the ski lifts were both strictly forbidden. What would our French friends think?!

Everyone is very courteous

There was no jostling for position in the lift queues, no children standing on the back of your skis and then zipping through your legs at the first opportunity, and the folks manning the chair lift bowed every time we got on and off. The level of chill was almost enough to compensate for the fact I didn’t have several mugs of vin chaud coursing through my veins while skiing…

Ski cleaning is a thing

We wouldn’t normally have thought anything of dumping our kit in the basement of our hotel or chalet still covered in snow. But since day-skiing is so popular here, people need a way to clean their skis and snowboards before loading them into their cars. The solution? Compressed air guns, which fire the ice off in all directions (mostly my face – thanks, Oli)! People were extremely diligent about using them, so we joined in, which was probably for the best, since our hotel’s ski locker was in the middle of the extremely nice reception area (it was by far the highest quality ski hotel we’ve ever stayed in).

Après ski? What après ski?

We weren’t exactly expecting to find La Folie Douce on the slopes of YongPyong, but we were still surprised at just how little was going on in the evenings – the best we managed was a quick pint at 6pm, carefully timed before the one bar in the resort closed.

On our first evening, we popped out for dinner shortly before 8pm, only to find that one part of the resort was already in complete darkness and the other part was just closing up. Thankfully, the 7-Eleven store had an excellent selection of beer to accompany our emergency dinner of instant ramen and sauna eggs!

I’d be really interested to see how different things are during high season. I get the impression there would be a bit more going on, but that it would all still be extremely family-friendly.

Overall, we really enjoyed our first foray into Asia’s skiing in YongPyong. To be brutally honest, I think we would have been disappointed if we’d come all the way from the UK specifically (because the piste length was a bit limited) – but that would have been a waste anyway, as South Korea has so much more to offer. Either way, it was time to move on, so after a happy couple of days going round and round on the open runs, we headed to South Korea’s fourth largest city, Daegu, to take drastic action to improve Korea’s cat count…

After a week in Seoul, it was time to get out of the city and explore a different side of South Korea. The doors of our express bus to Sokcho closed with military precision one minute before our scheduled departure and then we pulled away just as the clock ticked over – we still can’t get over how precise and efficient this country is! We had so much legroom that I could barely reach to kick the divider between us and the driver (probably for the best…) so it was a very comfortable journey. Oli was fast asleep before we’d even left the bus station and then later enquired whether I’d had a nice nap as he noticed I “fell asleep quite quickly”. Huh!

When we reached Sokcho, we transferred onto a local bus (after missing one because we were faffing, obviously) and made our way to Seorak-dong, the small town near the entrance to Seoraksan National Park.

We’d read that in season, this was a lively small town complete with a selection of karaoke bars (I’m determined to get Oli into one by the end of our month here). However, we were prepared for it to be a bit of a ghost town in late November, which was lucky because it really was dead – we saw no one else out on foot at all. Our hotel was eerily quiet – we’re still not sure if anyone else was staying there – and there were no open restaurants nearby. Thankfully, Korean convenience stores are totally amazing and we completed a supermarket sweep at the neighbouring 7-11, which did us very nicely for dinner.

The next morning was bright, clear and very cold, with a forecast daily high of -1°c. The views were already pretty spectacular as we walked along the road towards the entrance of the national park and we were excited about the day ahead.

On our way into the park, we passed through an ornate entrance gate with a banner that paid tribute to the victims of the Halloween crush in Itaewon. We also saw a bronze statue of Buddha that formed part of the Sinheungsa Temple and a bear statue. This seemed to be a popular point for photos, so we joined in briefly, before getting down to the more important business of shopping for makgeolli (milky-coloured rice wine), which we’d read was an essential component of Korean hiking.

As we started our hike, we passed by the main Sinheungsa Temple complex and very nearly didn’t go in, as we were keen to get going (in typical style, it wasn’t exactly an early start). I’m so glad we did as it was stunning – while the decoration was similar to some of the palaces and temples we visited in Seoul, the dramatic setting was something else.

We wandered amongst the buildings and peeked into the interiors, marvelling at the ornate decoration and enjoying the tranquil atmosphere. It wasn’t until we were on our way out that we noticed the Four Heavenly Kings holding a lute, sword, dragon and pagoda (photos 4 & 5), who had been watching over us from inside the entrance gate. I have no idea how we missed them on the way in, as they were enormous and very brightly coloured.

Finally, it was time to begin what had been described as a short but strenuous hike up to Ulsanbawi (873 m), a series of six rocky outcrops at the summit of Seoraksan Mountain.

Actually, it was a pretty gentle uphill stroll alongside the river for the first half-hour or so, before abruptly transforming into rough rocky steps that led steeply upwards through trees and only got steeper the further we went. It was pretty hard work! In the final stretch, when we were climbing the granite cliff itself, we followed a metal staircase that was bolted into the rocks and I just tried not to look down (having developed a recent fear of heights that I’m doing my best to ignore).

When we reached the summit, the views of the national park and all the way down to Sokcho and the East Sea were absolutely spectacular – we’d certainly chosen a good day to come. It was also incredibly cold, with an utterly freezing wind lashing the rocks (and us). We suddenly understood why no one else had stayed at the top very long – we’d seen lots of people descending already and had been wondering why.

Apparently on old maps, the area was marked as Cheonhusan (wailing sky mountain) because of the sound the wind makes when whistling around the peaks. It certainly did make a racket! We heard sounds like the noise you can make blowing on the top of a bottle, interspersed with booming thunder-like roars. Ice sat in deep, round pools that had been formed by erosion of the rock.

In what felt like a very British moment, we determinedly ate our lunch of gimbap at the peak while cowering behind a rock that provided very little shelter from the freezing wind. We had decided to have our picnic at the top, so we weren’t giving up even though it was far too cold to enjoy it properly!

Next, in what felt like a very Korean moment, we drank some of our corn-flavoured makgeolli, since we’d read this was the thing to do while hiking. The strong smell of yeast emanating from my backpack reminded us that it was there, at which point we realised it had been leaking. Whoops! It was sweet, tangy, chalky and slightly carbonated, and went down very well. We were too cold to stay for more than one hurried cup at the peak, but we stopped for two more on the way down and it helped us warm up considerably! The steep stairs and rocks got mysteriously more difficult to negotiate, though.

On our way down, we took a pit stop at Heundeul Bawi to check out the huge boulder perched on the edge of a ledge – apparently it’s possible for a small group of people to rock it back and forth. Between the two of us, we couldn’t make it move at all, which was probably for the best. We were irrationally nervous about being the people who finally sent it tumbling down the mountainside!

Nearby was Gyejoam Temple, which was partly set into a cave in the rock. Every available rocky surface around the temple was covered in small statues of Buddha, and people had perched coins on tiny crevices in the rock. Buddhist chanting echoed around the whole area, which was so atmospheric. Next to Heundel Bawi (the boulder) was a flat expanse of rock covered in engraved characters. We assumed these were religious messages, but sadly our Google Translate wouldn’t work on the engravings so we don’t know for sure.

Our final stop of the day was at one of the cafes near the park gate, where we had a hot chocolate to warm up after our chilly day outside. This concluded our time in Seoraksan, and the next day we headed south to the city of Gangneung.