CLICK HERE FOR FREE BLOG LAYOUTS, LINK BUTTONS AND MORE! »

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Vacation- All I Ever Wanted

Hello World!

Here is a LONG over due blog about my Lunar New Year Holiday.

For 4 years in college EVERY weekend was a 4 day weekend.

Nice life- right?

Well now I have a big girl job and I live in a country/ work in an industry that does not value vacation time. I have not had a day off since September- not even for Christmas. So when I saw that we got Monday and Tuesday off for Lunar New Year I knew I wanted to get away from the city and have a good time for 4 days.

So 5 coworkers and I headed to Phoenix Park for 2 days of skiing and snowboarding. I have been on skis since the first grade and if you know anything about me you know I LOVE skiing oh so much, but I decided I needed to branch out and try something new- so on Saturday I gave snowboarding a go.




After I strapped my board on for the fist time I was sure I would never be able to stand up- but sure enough I was successful. In college I had a long board skateboard and I would go skate the ramps in the parking garages. I had experience on a board carving, and that was really helpful. I still fell A LOT, but I was very surprised with my self that I was able to make it down the mountain on green and a little bit of blue hills. My last 2 runs were fall free =) I was very happy with myself, but this girl is a skier. So I traded in my board for skis the next day.



Skiing the next day was great. It snowed during the day so we had nice powder to ski on. I was not very fast on the snowboard, so it was nice to get some speed on my skis and get off the bunny hill and on to the black diamonds. We skied from 8:30- 4:30 with only a short break for lunch.






We were really tired and VERY SORE at the end of the night so we went to the spa and soaked in the hot tubs for a while. We had a great western dinner- PASTA- oh how I had missed going out for pasta. It was a perfect day.





Monday morning we headed to Hwacheon for the ice fishing festival. Sounds lame, I know, but it might have actually been the highlight. We started by doing the traditional ice fishing. and then we did barehand fishing. We put on shorts and t-shirts and jumped in ICE cold water and tried to catch fish with our bare hands. It was the coldest thing I might ever experience. It was SO cold. I was trying really hard to catch fish, but it got to the point where I could not move my hands so I got out.


I will NEVER forget this experience, that’s for sure.




We cooked the fish we caught- 23 of them and devoured them all.

We ended our time at the festival with some ice sledding =)



We drove into the mountains to get to our pension were we spent our last night. It was in the boonies. I really did not think Korea had such a thing, but it was a wonderful change of pace. I know for a fact that I more of a country girl than I am a city girl.

We had a wonderful bbq dinner and a BONFIRE. I love bonfires and miss them so much- so this was a real treat. We hung out for a long time and the group dwindled down to about 15 of us. One of the Irish guys really wanted everyone to sing their country's national anthems. It was so cool. I love that I get to live my life with people from all over the world.

The last morning Reuel and I were brave and went on the most intense hike ever. basically there was no path, and a good part of the hike we spent sliding down the hill, on our butts. I was wearing ugg-like boots mind you- yeah- I know bad idea. We made it though =)






We headed to an ice sculpture festival right after the hike. It was really cool- and they had bunnies that you could catch and play with- so fun =)






It was soooooo nice to have a little vacation after nearly 5 months of working 40 hours a week w/o a break. I was so tired and sore from all the activity- but my soul was refreshed.

I can’t believe this semester is almost over- only 3 weeks left! I feel like it just started- In 2 weeks we will will be meeting our 4 new teachers that will be replacing the 4 who are finishing their contracts at the end of the month. We have not gotten any new teachers since I got here- so I don't really know how to deal with this change. The foreign teachers now all have a really good relationship. We hang out often and get along really well. I’m gonna miss the old teachers, and I hope the new teachers are cool ;)

No comments:

Post a Comment