YongPyong Ski Resort Adventures

Outdoor sports are very popular with Koreans and in the winter skiing and snowbound are particularly big.  My boss at the after school English academy and her husband have season tickets to a ski resort and a month or so ago they asked us to join them one weekend!  They took us to Yongpyong Ski Resort which is supposedly one of the nicest in Korea.  According to the English translation on their website:  "All the happiness you can image in the winter can be realized in Yongpyong".  How is that for an endorsement!?

There was an amazing cable car lift that takes you up 3.7 km to the top of a mountain!  Here is a picture of my handsome Hubs at the top.  Ignore the sun in his eyes and check out that beautiful scenery behind him!

  

Plus we discovered that a warm bowl of Korean Ramen with a side of kimchi might be the yummiest ski break lunch ever!  It really hit the spot.

Even though the cable car slope was listed as an intermediate level and I am NOT an intermideiate skier,  somehow (ahem. . HUBS) I was talked into giving it a try later in the day .  I did make it to the bottom but almost got kicked off twice by emergency patrols in the process.  Apparently they have this up tight concept that you shouldn't be on a slope unless you can go down it on your skies as opposed to on your back??!

Hanoi Adventures Part II

One of our favorite things about traveling to new places is trying out the food!  While we were in Hanoi we each picked one restaurant to try.

Here is the entry way (there were gold fish swimming in a pond on either side of the walk way where I am standing) and the kitchen (which we overlooked as we ate) of the one I chose:

Here is the entry way/kitchen/and eating area of the one Hubs chose:

Both were very good but had slightly different atmospheres (and hygienic conditions) as you might imagine :)

Hanoi Adventures Part I

We spent the rest of our Vietnam visit in Hanoi.  As I mentioned earlier, our trip happened to coincide with Lunar New Year (also known as "Tet" in Vietnam) which is a huge event there.  One of the guide books even described it as the equivalent of an American's Christmas, New Years, Thanksgiving, and Fourth of July celebrations all combined!  Unfortunately, one of the few Vietnamese phrases we learned to say: "Chuc Mun Nam Moi" (Happy New Year) won't be very helpful if we ever make a trip back at a different time of year.

Traffic was CRAZY in the city.  Nobody really seemed to adhere to traffic laws (which we are used to from Korea) and what made it even worse is that probably 65% of the traffic consists of motor scooters rather than cars.

It was very common to see entire families traveling on one scooter together.  

And I thought it was bad being squished between my big brothers in the back seat of a Chevy Cavalier!  

The highest number I saw was a family of 5 on one scooter (granted the youngest was about 12 months and was being held by the mom so he didn't actually take up seat space, but still!).  Hubs spotted one that had 4 teenage boys on it.  Unfortunately we didn't get pictures of either of those or you could vote to help us solve our disagreement of which was more impressive!