The Year of Superlatives

I feel my life is one of extremes. I’m usually so incredibly happy, finding humor (sometimes inappropriately) in everyday life. And when I’m down, which isn’t as often, but does happen, I’m miserable. Today, however, I think I experienced my most mortifyingly embarrassing moment. Or one of them, at least.

I caught the bus to MuJu at 6 am. Slept the 2 1/2 hours there. Managed not only to buy my lift ticket, but also to rent equipment by myself. And tell them my shoe size in Korean. They didn’t believe me at first, but then I pointed to my shoes. Ooooh. Yes, tall American girl with big feet.

There weren’t many people on the slopes. I love that. I love having the mountain to myself. I love being able to zig zag across the mountain, not worrying about whether I’m going to crash into someone if they make an unexpected move. I’m also much more daring when other people aren’t around. I went to the slopes I wouldn’t go down with Peter and Han Youl. And took them on. With surprisingly few wipeouts.

There’s an interesting habit of snowboarders here. Instead of wearing their snowboard on the lift, they carry it, then run off the lift, sit down, and put their board on. I was having unusual success at getting off the lift with my board on (that’s where I normally fall), but I thought I’d “go Korean.” Just to give it a try. I was on a lift by myself. As I approached the dismount, I lifted the safety bar. As I got closer to the dismount, I put my feet down. I’m not sure what happened next. Only that I had tripped, the chair had hit me in the back of the head, and I was face down on the ice. My snowboard had gotten caught in between the seat and the back of the chair part of the chairlift. I reached up to grab it. It was stuck. Stuck. Not moving, stuck. So I was drug in the path of the chairlift, trying to dislodge my snowboard. I realized that I was on my way back down the mountain. I turned loose of my snowboard as the chair rounded the turn. I dropped to the ground. My snowboard was on the way back down the mountain.

I stood up. Brushed the snow off my pants and jacket and looked over at the lift operator. He was staring in disbelief. Speechless. I don’t think he’s ever seen quite a site. I walked over, smiled a big smile, shrugged my shoulders and said, “Mian hamnida.” I’m sorry. He continued to stare at me. He then radioed down to the lower lift. And pointed for me to sit inside the ski patrol hut. Inside there were two ski patrol members. One gave me a big smile as I came in. The other just stared. I flashed them both a huge smile, said hello and introduced myself in Korean. They wanted to know where I was from. And if I had ever snowboarded before. Yes, actually I’m quite good. Really. I’ve just never gotten off the lift like that before. One ski patrol member offered this advice, “Lift. Board on. Good. (motioned holding board) Korean way. Bad. Dangerous. No do.” Yeah, got it.