Batam Cable-Ski Park

After KB and I were back from Maldives, I had another trip lined up in the following weekend. This time, I'm going for a short getaway to Batam with my three girlfriends. One of them is super resourceful and planned the entire trip for us.



So, here we are at Harbourfront Ferry Terminal, boarding the boat on a hazy Saturday morning. When we reach Batam, we disembarked at Waterfront City Terminal. As we were going through the custom as a group (with the other people going for cable ski), our passports were collected. This felt really insecure for us, as we would definitely prefer to have our passports kept by ourselves while in a foreign country. Then, we boarded the bus that would take us to Batam Cable-Ski Park (BCP).






The ride on the chartered bus was a short one. It was about 11 am (Batam time) when we arrived at the ski park. Batam (GMT+7) is 1 hour behind Singapore (GMT+8). Each group of guests were allocated their own sitting area. One of the staff, Brown, was entertaining us and looking out of us, knowing that it was our first time there. Before we can go down to the water, all the first timers had to be briefed on the technicals know-hows and safety of cable skiing.


A super big trampoline






The queue for the cable ski

Throughout the whole time we were there, their sound system was blasting techno music. The place was pretty much filled with youngsters, who are way too happening and are perhaps drinking a little too much. They're not really my kind of crowd.

Yongpyong Ski Resort

On day 2 of our South Korea tour, we arrive at the Yongpyong Ski Resort and we checked into a room at Greenpia Condominium for the night.

Lobby at Greenpia Condominium

There's only one bedroom and it is not furnished with any bed, but with mattress that we can spread out on the floor.

View of the mountains from our room.

Before heading to this ski resort, we stopped by a house for lunch and to rent our ski wears. We changed into them in our hotel room and walk over to the Dragon Plaza to collect the ski gears.

KB isn't keen to ski, while I've already skied before some years back. However, our tour guide suggested that we still change into the attire to take some photos, since the rentals have already been paid for. So, that's what we did.




After returning our ski gears, we wandered around and found ourselves a dinner place.




The next morning, we opt to take the cable car up to Dragon Peak.



It's very foggy all the way up to the mountain top.




As the cable car travels to a higher altitude, there's not much to see, except snow and trees.



Here we are at the Dragon Peak.

It's foggy, windy and the temperature is negative 7 degrees Celsius... too uncomfortable for KB to stay outdoors for too long.



On the upper level, there's the restaurant that a scene in Winter Sonata television drama series was filmed in.





It seems like the restaurant isn't opened in the morning and the staff didn't stop us from hanging around to take photos.

SnowBoarding at Gore Mountain

The couple rented an SUV and 5 gooseberries tagged along for a trip to Gore Mountain. One of my friends sprained her ankle some days ago. It's a pity she couldn't join us for the snowboarding lesson, but she still kept herself entertained... we handed all our cameras to her and she went trigger happy.

Who abandoned their skis here?

To end of the trip, we took the gondola to the highest point, where it's really windy and cold! While the experts would ski or snowboard down back to the base, we obviously took the gondola back down, else we will all have broken bones.

The gondola cabins

Skiing at Lapland

Last night, the crazy bunch of us stayed up till wee hours of the morning. With only about 4 hours of sleep, we set off for a skiing trip with our senior colleagues today. They were very kind to let us tag along; even came to pick us up from our rented apartments and drove a long way up the mountain to Lapland Lake. I don't have any camera, so all the photos are from my friends'.

The place we rent our skis.

Skis of different lengths

Fireplace

My first time seeing a real life reindeer!

Cottage in the distance