The two lads at the car rental desk looked increduously at us. ‘You seriously want to rent a car, ….here?’ We pretty quickly got the idea that this doesn’t happen too often in Korea. The car rental pool had a dozen cars and this for an airport that handles 45 million passengers a year. We signed where we were told to sign, paid the money and were soon on the road.
If adventure skiing is your thing Korea is not a top choice! Skiing is popular with Koreans during the bitter cold of winter but is confined to groomed pistes of artificial snow which slice through heavily wooded hills.
During our stay temperatures varied between -5°C and -16°C giving down to -30°C with the wind chill factor – no problems for making and maintaining the quality of artificial snow but pretty cold for skiing short pistes for any length of time. For the very enthusiastic skier at Yongpyong, Korea’s largest resort and the site of the 2018 Winter Olympics, pistes are open from 0630 until 0230. Tickets are available for parts of the day with the ‘night and twilight pass’ valid from 9pm to 2 30am….
Skiing off-piste in Korea is absolutely not an option and as for skinning…. forget it. Our biggest adventures were had at the dinner table where we had narrow escapes from various types of offal and some extraordinary looking sea creatures. The food was delicious.
One doesn’t go skiing in Korea to ski.