Korean snowdays.......

It snowed in Korea on Christmas day, just a light sprinkle late in the day around where we were celebrating in the Hilton Grand. It looked lovely, and gave us all the proper feeling of a white Christmas day. When we got back to Ansan, they also had the light sprinkle, and most of it was gone the next day. New Year’s was seen in over at our Canadian friends apart-uh, and then the temperatures plummeted. We were lucky if it got any warmer than -5oC most days. What with the folks being over from back home, it was decided that venturing out onto the icy pavements and braving the Arctic conditions was best left to Polar bears and Eskimos. We hibernated. At least until the folks went back home. We used a call van service to transport them to the airport, and used said service to run us both back to our snug and warm apart-uh, but the journey was less than pleasant. The driver took us back via the new bridge and highway, which I understand is the 7th longest bridge in the world, if they count the elevated section of road leading and trailing from it at 18Km’s. Once we hit the normal highway heading back to Ansan, we came to a slow snail’s pace, as the traffic had built up quite a distance. We soon found out why. The van was travelling along at a merry 20Km/hr when we started to go sideways. In front was a typical Korean Bongo flat bed van with it’s brake lights fully lit, and also travelling perpendicular to the traffic lanes. We stopped just in time, but it was cause for concern, and a quick check for that sudden “brown trouser” moment. The rest of the journey was taken steadily, thank goodness, but towards the end of the journey, Sue looked at me and asked of the driver was nodding off! Sure enough, his eyes could be seen closing and his head nodding in the rear-view mirror. I was about to shout at him to wake up, when he seemed to feel our eyes burning into the back of his head. He soon came round, and got us home in one piece. I also decided that he should drop us off in the centre of Gojan so at least we didn’t have to negotiate the slippery back roads with a half-asleep driver. We headed into Homeplus (Tesco store) for some much needed supplies, as we hadn’t been out for a few days, then grabbed a taxi back home. We also hibernated for the next 2 days, until I had to back to work on Monday 4th January.

Monday 4th January saw me waking up to about 15cm of snow dropped onto the ground overnight. A quick peek outside the window saw traffic at a complete stand-still even down the side roads from our apart-uh complex. I also saw something which never seems to fail to amaze me. There was an ambulance trying to come out from one of the complex exit roads and make it’s way onto the main road. It’s blues and two tones were going full pelt, but no-one even bothered trying to make a hole to let it in, or pass. I swear he sat there for a good 7 minutes lights flashing, and horns blaring. I pitied the poor hapless sod who must have been in the back, and needed open heart surgery or something equally urgent. I don’t understand the reckless disregard for any emergency vehicle here in Korea. I hope they don’t have to get to hospital in a hurry themselves.

I wrapped up warm and headed out to my usual spot where Johnny-cab waits for me. Odd, he hadn’t turned up! I figured that a short walk to the taxi rank would enable me to get into a cab and head off to work. It became clear that about 12 or so other people had the same idea. However, snow on ground plus lack of anything moving on the road = no way am I getting to work on time in a cab. The idea of just sitting in a cab while the fare piled up sitting in a traffic jam didn’t appeal. Both me and my Canadian chum decided that heading back to the apart-uh and a nice hot cup of coffee would do the trick. I kept watch out the window for any let-up in the traffic or conditions, whilst relaying information back and forth via mobile phone to my mate.

We decided that around 11:30, the traffic had died down enough to warrant a second try at getting to work. Usually the cab fare is around 7,000KRW, but this time it came to 20,000KRW. Traffic was at near stop all the way into work, which looked like a ghost town. Even our COO had to turn back. One of our guy’s the sales director turned in at around 3:00pm, having taken 8 hours to drive in from Seoul. I would have given up after 2 hours and headed back home – trooper that he was! Getting back home was also an issue – cabs were unwilling to make the journey, as they could easily clean-up with short trips around town. We had to call up a black cab, which is more expensive, but at least they came over to pick us up. Journey home was even trickier, as it was also dark!

Next few days has seen the snow being crunched down into sheets of ice, and blindingly low temperatures – it has dropped to around -16oC each night and when the wind blows, it feels even colder as it bites into you. Roll on Summer, and we wont even dare to criticize the humidity and sweltering temperatures!