Christmas this year was definitely a first. One, I've never been away from my family on Christmas and two, I never thought I'd spend it at a ski resort in Korea. At least it was a white Christmas! Somehow we managed to get 14 people to YongPyong Ski Resort & squeezed into two ondol rooms (ondol= no beds, floor mats). YongPyong is Korea's "claim to fame" when it comes to skiing. It's nothing too special, but still felt great to be out on the slopes with all of our friends.

Highlights:

• KPOP CONCERT TWO NIGHTS WE WERE THERE! You better believe Rhys was loving it. We all stood OUTSIDE, feet in the snow, freezing our asses off in 9 degrees (-13 celsius) attempting to dance around to keep warm.
• Stew & Reena got engaged!
• Santa still managed to find us high up on a Korean Mountain.
• A very random Christmas dinner in the hostel's 'dining hall' with tons of other Korean families wondering what we were doing. We even held hands and sang Christmas carols.
• Discovering the indoor water park & sauna next to the slopes and spending the day on water slides and floating in the lazy river.
• Skiing on Christmas Day past Koreans dressed as Santa.

Being away from home on Christmas definitely sucked, but spending it skiing with our crazy friends was a great alternative!

These (23) pictures explain our trip much better then me though...

• YongPyong Ski Resort - The site is in English and has great maps & all the information you need about accomdation and the resort.
• Life in Korea - Another great site with lots of information about YongPyong Ski Resort.
• Peak Island - Yongpyong's water park that provided us with a welcome break from the slopes.