Skiing

I've never been skiing before. I think I had the chance when I was 17 or 18, when my sister, mother and I went up north. But I got deathly sick and spent all my time confined to the cabin, laying in bed, puking and smelling the death farts of my mother's large friend, who's cabin it was.

So last Sunday, Geoff and I caught a 5:30 am bus from the Shinbok Rotary in Mugeo-Dong to go Skiing at Muju Resort, which if my liar guidebook is to believed, is one of the top Ski Resorts in all of Korea. To be fair to my guidebook (and to Muju Resort), it was pretty excellent, but then again I have nothing to compare it to.

For 75,000 won each (maybe $60), Geoff and I got skis and lift tickets from 8:30 am-4:30 pm. We rented ski pants for an additional 15,000 won each (maybe $12). They took one look at how tall I am and gave me extra large ski pants, which was alright because I was wearing two pairs of sweat pants. But they were still way too large and I felt not unlike Eddie Murphy in one of the numerous films during which he has chosen to wander around a fat suit. I think Eddie Murphy really likes fat suits.

All in all, each of us paid under a hundred dollars for everything for an entire day of skiing. I have no context here, but I've been led to believe that these are good prices.

The mountain was very picturesque and snow fell roughly the entire time I was there, which was beautiful and peaceful, but very cold. The snow stuck in my hair and scarf and Geoff's facial hair, making me look like a glistening snow nymph and making Geoff look like a yeti type cave man.

We first rode a sort of cranky escalator thing up the side of a hill and there tried to stick the snow boots into the skis. This give me some difficulty and I pitched over twice, which led me to the immediate conclusion that pants that don't fit are a bad idea for snow because you will get snow down your backside. I think most of the snow on that mountain (ahem...bunny slope) passed through my overly large ski pants that day.

Eventually, a ski affixed to each foot, I endeavored to "whoosh whoosh" down the hillside as I have seen people do in films and during the winter Olympics.

I made it about three feet and then I got more snow down my pants.

Before the trip, I had read up on skiing and Geoff had pretty thoroughly explained the theory and practice of the sport to me. Nothing is ever as easy as that though. If reading about something made you good at it, I would be a Renaissance man to revile Michelangelo and others.

I think the notion though is that you should mostly move sideways, parallel to the hill. You should not go straight down the hill because you will go faster and faster until you are traveling at the speed of light and will then crash in to something solid and die, in the most fiery of manners.

You accomplish this side to side (whoosh, whoosh) thing by placing your weight on the ski that is lower on the hill, all the while shifting the other ski so it can guide your soon to be ensuing turn and then take your weight when you turn. Do all of that and never cross your skis. Keep them parallel or make a sort of pizza shape with them to slow down. Do NOT cross them. That made no sense, right? Well exactly.

It became clear pretty quickly that I was a ski crosser. I would be going along just fine and then I would panic and clench my legs and knees together (like a virgin guarding herself) and then the skis would cross and I would have no control of anything and I would basically end up in the snow again. Not crossing skis is an act of practice and control. On a good day, I possess very little practice or control. Finding myself strapped to strange plastic sticks on the pricipice of an avalanch waiting to happen did not help me with practice or control.

In many respects, Geoff is a splendid teacher. But not in terms of patience or hands on instruction. Every time my skis began to cross, he would cry out, alarm bell style, "Oh no! Your skis are crossed! Oh don't do that! Oh no! You don't want that! Oh no! Your skis are crossed! Oh god! Oh no! You better uncross them."

This response was, on the whole, not helpful. Once my skis crossed, I was usually pretty aware of it and even more aware that this was not a good thing. Because a crossed pair of skis is a stuck pair of skis.

Once the skis cross, you loose basically all of your control over your movement (which, if you were fool enough to let them cross, wasn't much to begin with) and can basically do nothing except prepare to get a lot of ice up your ass. On the one hand it is annoying to mess up, despite trying not to. But having someone standing nearby, quietly taking in my ineptitude without offering any help until I'm basically fucked and then informing, "Oh man are you fucked," is unhelpful enough to (at least in my mind) warrant some kind of corporal punishment. So after a while, I threatened Geoff with the prospect of a ski pole in his rectum and he left me to my own devices.

I will say that I got the hang of it after a mere three tries on the baby bunny slope and was ready for the actual bunny slope, which would require me to get on a ski lift. I was nervous as hell about this and so Geoff gave me what he promised was a thorough rundown of the procedure.

It all went almost according to plan. I got in front of the lift in a timely fashion and sat down without incident. Just as I was breathing a sigh of relief, this massive bar dropped down out of nowhere to kill me. The bar supposedly exists to keep from people from falling out of the lift and is not intended to trap or execute skiers guillotine style. Supposedly.

It missed my head and body, but my billowing ski pants were not so lucky and became trapped between the seat and the bar. My ski poles also somehow got caught up in this mess and I made stupid, dismayed sounds as I fought to free them. To his credit, Geoff came to my aid pretty quickly. To his discredit, he chuckled a lot.

As we fought the ski lift, next to us, sat this perfect, beautiful Korean couple in matching, skin tight ski suits that they had obviously hadn't rented. They both also had goggles and head bands to keep their hair and ice out of their eyes and they were obviously better people than us. They observed my struggle without amusement, with the sort of derision I can only imagine one is free to feel for other human beings when one is perfect. If you ever want to feel like a clunky, badly dressed, ridiculous, monster of a person, go to Korean and sit on a ski lift. Under their designer scrutiny, we did manage to free my pants and person, but I gave Geoff an earful about not sufficiently preparing me to ride the ski lift.

Going down the bunny slope was great actually, meaning primarily that I didn't crash into any Koreans and that the skiing Koreans were similarly obliging about not crashing into me. I fell over a bit my first few times down, but managed to pick myself up (no small feet when you have four foot long pieces of plastic strapped to your feet), dust the snow off and out of my pants and continue down the slope.

It became easier and more natural the more I did it. I would ride the ski lift up the hill, step off and go "whoosh, whoosh," down the hill. Ride up, step off, "whoosh, whoosh" down. Lather, rinse, repeat. I had to make the "whoosh, whoosh" sound myself because the actual sound of skiing isn't quite as convincing.

But I think I can ski and I plan to say that from now on, in mixed company, if anyone thinks to ask.

This will be me: "Yeah, I've been skiing. I'm not great. But I can ski." I will say this like I am being modest, as though in fact, I invented skiing.

I'm glad I to be 24 (26 by the Korean standards) and still learning things.