Wednesday, February 6, 2008

MuJu Resort, Jeolla Buk Do, South Korea


Yesterday-officially kicked off the Korean(Asian)Lunar New Year holidays in South Korea. Again, most English teachers from abroad are going abroad for the week long celebration about not-teaching!!! It is definitely enough reason in itself to celebrate a national holiday. I joined Issac from work and his entourage of friends from other branches of our school to Muju Resort for a funtastic day of skiing and fresh air. Muju is located in the southwestern Jeollabuk province. The bus ride from Seoul lasted 3 hours and most of us were sleeping on the way to the resort. The cost of a lift ticket, W60,000 or $65CDN. The cost of the ski/board rentals W30,000/33,000 (about $35/38CDN) respectively. The ski conditions were unbelievable, it was clear and calm. We enjoyed a windless day of -9, and later -6.5 degrees Celsius in the afternoon. I skied most of the day with Duke from Brooklyn, NYC and his colleague from Louisiana. The slopes were empty as most Korean folks were preparing to leave for their holidays in hometowns across the peninsula. In fact, we lucked out completely. There were practically no lines at all the lifts, so we skied all day without a delay. The chalet served funny "hotdogs" with no buns for W2,500 or $3CDN without a bun! The Korean/Chinese dishes looked tasty for $9-10. I skipped the meal ticket and saved it for the W4,000 ($4.50) 500cc pints of draft beer. It was delicious and our theory proved correctly that we would ski much better after a few pints of Gold lager! Indeed, it was one fine day in Korea. Duke said he forgot he was still in Korea, "it was just me and the mountain" he had said. I appreciated having ski buddies to enjoy the fun with for about 6 hours. I was happy to complete the last run, but sad to leave the mountains, to me: "this is home in South Korea"

Mi Sung is battling Matthew's bulge: Delivery is in sight, a few more days at home. Wishing peace and warm wishes around to friends and family on this Lunar New Years!!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sweet!! Reminds me of the ski trips out west here in the US...

Please share the free inspiration and adventure cookbook with all your friends and families (:

Ted Simon Foundation

About the Korean-World Author

Brian Perich was an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) lecturer for a decade, father, and adventure cyclist based in South Korea.

Previously, Brian has led Canoe adventures in Quetico Provincial Park, Atikokan, Ontario, Canada (1993/1999); led Grand American camping adventures (2000); lived at Paramahansa Yogananda's SRF Ashram for 5 months (see the film "AWAKE"), formerly worked in titanium welding at Agilent Technologies, formerly worked in Winery industry in Marin County with Kendall Jackson in California; Surfing and Meditation continued for several years in California, British Columbia, South Korea, Yoga training in California 1999-2000.

Between 1994-1998 - Brian completed his own adventures with motorcycles. His motorcycling marathons took him across the United States and central/western Canada, while traveling solo over an astounding 24,000km in 60 days! Brian endured 900 mile/1300km average days in the motorcycle saddle and apparently loved every minute of those adventures.

Today, he has given up motorcycle adventures altogether, but finds an outlet for his enthusiasm in outdoor recreation while bicycle touring and micro-blogging about those experiences on his mountain bikes.

While employed as an English teacher in South Korea, Brian has became an advocate for bicycle touring on his mountain bikes. The Korean-World blog originated from those small adventures in Korea, now expanded to cover his recent trek down the TransMongolian highway to the Gobi Desert, cycling 900km east through the Khentii grasslands and in 2012 crossing Mongolia in 45 days, 2500 kilometers 1553 miles. HimalayasX expedition Brian previously cycled across western China, the Taklamakan Desert, the northern Himalayas of East Turkestan Xinjiang/Uyghur Autonomous Region, the corrugated back roads and mountains of Kham Tibet. Brian successfully completed his 2011 mountain bike expedition with 3200 kilometers / 1988 miles unsupported, on/off road MTB adventure cycling.
Brian has completed his second mountain bike journey, MongoliaX expedition - Crossing Mongolia 2012, an unsupported mountain bike MTB expedition across 2500km of Outer Mongolia from Ulanbaatar to Altai Taven-Bogd National Park bordering China, Russia and Mongolia.


In 2013, as a sequel to a trilogy of cycle tours, Brian enjoyed a more leisure bicycle tour onboard his Koga-Miyata World Traveller seeing the northern tier of the United States and western Canada covering 3400 kilometers / 2000 miles in 30 days. This North American cycle tour was called Totherocktour. Enjoying the adventure of bicycle travel and every great conversation started while traveling on the road - has refueled his inspirations to cycle around the Earth. In 2013, while he cycled solo from the Great Lake State of Michigan, United States to Banff National Park in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. He weaved through local communities and reconnected with friends, family and community after spending almost a decade in Asia.


Brian is now supporting several non-profit foundations through expeditions: IDEAS Foundation of Canada IDEAS is the acronym for Intestinal Disease Education and Awareness Society which supports the IBD community, those suffering from IBD-inflammatory bowel disease, also known as Crohn's and Ulcerative Colitis.


The second non-profit foundation is ETE.ORG - Education Through Expeditions, UK which supports educational outreach programs inside schools around the world. ETE connects explorers with students in the classroom, through an interactive online program in development (Beta).


Brian is researching support for a 18000 kilometer bicycle expedition across the Americas: North, Central and South America - ONE -Arctic to Argentina
Please contact him if you are interested in helping out.

Twitter: Cycleagain
Location: Gangneung, Gangwon-do, South Korea or southern Ontario, Canada.

Thanks for visiting my Journal from Asia

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Brian's friends have also been...Cycling in Korea!

Brian's friends have also been...Cycling in Korea!

Cycling in Korea, Warning: always wear a helmet! (I gave mine to my friend)

Cycling in Korea, Warning: always wear a helmet! (I gave mine to my friend)

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