i realize fully well that I owe this blog a post about my fourth and final southeast asian country, Vietnam, but that will have to wait. For now, I am going to tell you about my weekend - since it stands out as exceptional for its first, lasts, and overall events.
Friday after school I met up with my friends and we promptly took a bus out East. It was my first time going to the northeastern part of the country. We took the bus to a town called Gangneung and after some more arranging ended up near our destination: Yongpyong Ski Resort.
Friday night we got fitted for our equipment, met our other friends and enjoyed some less than enjoyable convenience store food for dinner. We all slept on the floor of a 10 person hostel room that Quinn graciously booked for us.
This weekend was not only my first time skiing, it was, as best as I can remember, the first time I'd ever been to a ski resort. I've heard of stories from friends about Colorado and Utah and the sort, but never actually been myself. The Grants just aren't a ski & snowboard type family.
We woke up early on Saturday to get to the slopes as they opened and we got our lift tickets and everything by 8:30. Now, I had absolutely no idea how to ski whatsoever and even the bunny hill looked a bit daunting. Our group was lucky enough to have a nice arrangement of beginners and experienced mountain riders. My friend Justine agreed to teach me how to get down the hill without dying.
I'd say my first two minutes on the bunny hill were amongst the more frustrating of my life. After inadvertently speeding down the hill, falling on purpose to save myself and not knowing how to get up (2x-3x) I finally got the tiniest bit of the hang of the whole thing. It wasn't truly very difficult to pick up once you had an idea of how to balance, distribute weight, slow down and turn.
Before long I was handling the bunny hill no problem and moving on to "greens" and harder runs. I had a nice group of snowboarders present for encouragement and help (they were beginners too, but props to them for making it through the day....and a special thanks has to go out to Marla (and Sam if she reads this? but mostly Marla) for helping me in and out of my skis a dozen and a half times and sticking it out through the awkward pile-ups of Korean skiers that I created.
I also fell once getting off the chairlift, after my ski pole got tangled with our friend Greg's legs and had to try and roll away for fear of getting trampled by all the other lifts that were going to come in. The group got a great laugh out of it.
I'm going to give out kudos here to Quinn for convincing me that skiing would be enjoyable - I had my doubts. It was a blast....once you learn that falling isn't the worst thing ever. I probably fell 4 or 5 times the whole day and none were bad enough to injure me more than a few sore knees and back.
I'll be skiing again someday - and hopefully getting better and better.
And since I have no American resort to compare it to, I can't judge Yongpyong too well. I'm willing to bet that most ski resorts don't have a PC Room (always full, no less) nor do they serve Mandu dumplings in the main lodge. But the place was very cool - a few large hotels, some chalets, a hostel for the lighter pockets, a bowling alley, several restaurants and something like 27 different runs people could wind through.
Also, a shout out to Quinn and Brian who, I believe, both won their races and got some prizes. We all actually entered the race - in order to get the freebys ( a great sweater, a number for the race, and some coffee. we mostly did it for the sweater)...
The place was an interesting mix of Koreans, Americans, Canadians and some Northern Europeans who occasioned the mountain perhaps normally or perhaps for the races and "festival".
Perhaps the only negative about the ski trip was that I had to leave early. While the rest of the group stayed Saturday night and some skiied again today (Sunday), I had to take a 5pm bus back to Guri.
Why? Well, I had my first baseball practice today.
Last week a teacher (Mr. Choi) approached me to see if I wanted to join his team - Force Nine - with him and his buddies. They play in two different leagues and that means a game almost every Sunday until the end of the summer. I told him I'd love to but couldn't make every game and that didn't matter.
Since I am a foreigner though, I would have to meet the team manager so he could make sure my skills were enough to cut it in the Korean leagues.
So this morning a bit before 10am, Choi picked me up. He told me that we'd have a 3 hour practice, eat lunch and then have a scrimmage game. I had no idea it would be such a long day but it was terrific fun.
I should say now that I made the team - and I did pretty well today.
Our first stop was in a corporate yard, in a rented out warehouse space that the team calls "House". It's basically an indoor baseball practice area fusioned with a straight up bro-pad.
2/3 of the space is nets and a batting cage and room for throwing the ball around. The rest - a pool table, ping-pong table, flat screen, couches, massage chair, Wii, space heaters, lounge benches - was dedicated to the "boys being boys" aspect of the team. Apparently, they go out drinking most Sundays after wins - I'll be sure to tell you about that when it goes down.
So I met most of the team today - along with their "trainer", a super-intense Korean man who ran the whole team through stretching, some conditioning, and hours of baseball drills today. It was indeed a 3 hour practice - very few breaks. We practiced grounders, throwing mechanics, hitting mechanics, running mechanics and I feel like at some point just plain life mechanics. At no great surprise, Koreans are extremely mechanically driven with baseball - as I imagine them to be with most sporting arenas.
I was a bit rusty at first but picked up some of my old skills (ha!) - and it helped that Koreans aren't really that great at baseball, most likely because it's just not that popular of a sport here. Millions more play soccer and badminton comes after that.
Anyway, after the practice/warmup, we headed about 30 minutes away to Songchu, to a nifty baseball diamond in between some mountain ranges. It was actually pretty scenic and surreal, and the sunset casta strange shadow on the field but it was still beautiful.
We played a scrimmage against another team - we won 10-4 and it was really fun being out with all of them. Choi is really the only one that speaks English, which made me feel like Ichiro most of the time I was playing. Later they told me that I'm the first white player to play in the league - yeah, that's right, I'm breaking the color barrier - I'm thinking of wearing 42 on my FORCE jersey.
How did I do? I batted 2-4, 3 RBIs, one run scored, a tag out at second, a caught line drive and no errors. Was I so vain as to keep my own statistics - no! I was given my stat sheet on the drive home from Choi who happily recorded each game detail in his iPhone as the game went on. Yes, apparently, there's an app for that.
Our seasons starts next Sunday - I'll be sure to give some updates now and then.
What else?
Oh, I shaved for the first time in over 2 months. I was beginning to wonder what my chin looked like. And even with no facial hair, the next youngest player on my new baseball team (26 american age) guessed I was 29. (Jo - I need to age backward faster!)
I found a new, and closer, Chuiatong place to go to! This means that I will be making the walk to East Guri for some delicious mudfish soup at least once a week. I hope they'll start to remember me so I don't have to order. I have that savvy sort of deal going on at my local Kimbop place but I need a second location.
If I've told you about the drama with my bedframe and my leaving of it in my hallway (it's too long of a story) there's a new chapter. It was removed! That's right - someone just took it away. My tactic of just leaving it out until it disappeared has worked and I only had to endure a few complaints from my way-too-nice doorman.
The second comma in the title of this blogpost is an "Oxford Comma" in case you wondered what that was.
I hope one day the world might read about this man, who nearly single-handedly started the wave of Middle East protests taht is changing the political and social landscape of that always tumultuous region.
I can't believe what is going on in Madison! It's so terrific, what a beautiful and moving city. It's these things that give me some hope that I might actually live in America longterm and not grow angered by perennial apathy. Wish I were there - and if you are there and reading this, keep it up. The more attention you all get from the world the better since apparently the lawmakers won't listen.
I'll leave with a song and a quotation....
Fela Kuti - Zombie (some call him the Bob Marley of Nigeria, and indeed he's got the funk and the love - it's just mixed with some potent politics)
"Among those whom I like, I can find no common denominator, but among those I love, I can; all of them make me laugh."
- W. H Auden
e.g.
No comments:
Post a Comment