We took the little Stockdales skiing this year for Christmas. Ok, there was no actual ‘skiing’ by any member of the Stockdale family on this trip, however it was cold. We would have liked for the little Stockdales to ski, however we knew they couldn’t and wouldn’t learn anything from Mrs. Stockdale or I and we were fairly certain their Korean langauge skills weren’t up to little kid ski school.
The resort we went to was called PyeongChang and it will host the Winter Olympics in 2018. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Winter_Olympics Based on the size of the ‘mountain’ and the amenities offered, Perfect North Slopes in Cincinnati is a viable candidate to host the 2022 Winter Olympiad.
The best part of the resort was our condo. Here are fantastic pictures of our wonderful bedroom.
If you’re wondering where the beds are ( like we did ), they are rolled up in the closet and you unfurl them onto the floor at bedtime.
In addition to not having beds, there were also no towels. Had we known, we would have brought some.
The cold hard floor was about as comfortable as you’d expect and our three-day, two-night trip to the mountains was cut short a night for the sake of warmth, comfort, moisture absorption, and the general well-being of my back. Regardless, there was still fun to be had (or fun to be curtailed ).
We went sledding. The person in the lower left hand corner is making sure you don’t go fast.
If you do go too fast, they come and warn you to slow down next time.
The little Stockdales also briefly were able to play in the snow. At least until this nice man came to warn them that this pile of snow was too dangerous.
There was also a water park at the resort. It was part Great Wolf Lodge and part nanny state.
The big little Stockdale could go down the big slides because she was tall enough, by a quarter-inch. However, she could not play with her sisters on the other slides because she was too tall by a quarter-inch. The middle little Stockdale was a quarter-inch too small for the big slides, but was fine for the little kid play area with the crazy little Stockdale. The crazy little Stockdale could play on the little kid slide, but there were no adults allowed in the little kid play area, except that children under 100 cm ( that’s 1 meter in metric ) had to have an adult with them, however adults are not permitted in this area. This all basically meant that you should play and enjoy the water park, but that the only way to do this as a family was if all your children were the same size, except if your children were small, then they were only allowed in the area where you could not go with them, but they could only be there with you. These rules all make sense if you are Korean because they are written down on signs and posted on walls and therefore obeyed without question.
All these rules were strictly enforced by the friends of the nice man who removed the little Stockdales from the deadly snow pile. In Korea, kids don’t need car seats, people just randomly walk across roads without any regard for oncoming traffic, but god forbid an adult should cross the red line in the wave pool without a life vest on. The water is one meter ( that is 100 centimeters in metric ) deep!
As an added bonus at the waterpark, they also offered food safety tips.
Safety being the primary objective, it is perfectly fine to drink beer at the waterpark. If it wasn’t for Cass and it’s ‘Sound of Vitality’, I’m not sure we would have made it through two days and one night of being prevented from having any fun whatsoever.
Korea is just a very odd and often contradictory place. To one extent you can drive your motor scooter down a crowded sidewalk at 30 mph without anyone caring, red lights are suggestions, crosswalks optional, and u-turns can be made at will. Traffic laws seem to apply to no one. However, if you attempt to question any of the nazi like safety rules at the water park, you are viewed as endangering the well-being and safety of everyone in the facility.
Someday I’ll get Korea figured out, but it will probably be the day before Mrs. Stockdale packs us up and takes us someplace else.
Adventures of Dale Stockdale 