Visiting Korea: Day 9 Snow Tour at Jisan Ski Resort

During my first trip to Korea in 2010, I visited during summertime. This time, for our second trip we chose to visit in December during winter! By doing so, we get to experience Korea in a different way. Most people avoid travelling during winter due to the cold. For us, the weather did not stop us from visiting.

Typically the ski season starts in mid December. The day we landed in Incheon, there was already snow, even in non-mountainous areas in Seoul city centre itself. However, to see a full winter landscape, the best way is still to head to a ski resort! If you choose to visit a ski resort during the weekends and plan to stay overnight, it would be best to book in advance. For us, we chose to do a day trip from Seoul instead.

The day before, we enlisted the help of the friendly receptionist at our guesthouse in Hongdae to help us book the daily tour to Jisan Ski Resort (45,000 won per person as of December 2013). It was easily done and the next morning we waited to be picked up at the lobby. After the tour group had assembled onto the bus, it took about an hour for us to reach the bottom of the ski resort where we stopped to get ski gloves. For those who took the ski package, they rented ski clothes and equipment here.

From the rental shop area, it is a short ten minutes walk to the entrance of the ski resort. Here, you can see many groups of people learning basic skiing lessons, including kids! For the skiers, you will need to purchase ski lift tickets too unless you intend to drag your equipment up the slope in order to ski down the slope. As for ourselves, we strolled around the resort to enjoy the snow scenery around us and played with snow as we did not book for a ski package. Whenever we felt cold, we would stop to rest at one of the restaurants at the resort. We also had lunch here where the food is reasonably priced (about 7000-10,000 won) although the selection is somewhat limited.

After spending about four hours at the resort, it was time for us to leave. Before dropping off the tour group members at our respective accommodation, we made a customary stop at a ginseng centre. As per the usual "tour", expect to be given a short briefing on the benefits of ginseng, a sample to try to the usual sales talk to encourage you to purchase ginseng products. Luckily, the salespersons there were not pushy and after a short stop, we were soon at our guesthouse once again. As it was still early, we walked about the lively Hongdae area before trying out a highly recommended BBQ restaurant where we had delicious samgyupsal on our last night in Seoul!