Spring Picnic

As promised in the last entry, I went on the annual Front Office Spring Picnic with half of the Front Office Teams from our two hotels. Because there are almost 150 staff between the two hotels in the Front Office, we split up in to two teams. Team One had their picnic from Monday afternoon until Tuesday afternoon, and second team in this Thursday afternoon until Friday afternoon.

So, as planned I was on team one, and at around 1230pm we left the hotel with 70 other staff in two big buses for our 3 hour journey to the west coast of South Korea called Daechun Beach. In traditional Korean style the beers and soju were cracked open the moment the bus left the hotel, all the way to Daechun. I was a great drive, and so nice to be out of Seoul. It is just such a contrast once you get out of the city. We had a few stops on the way for toilet breaks and finally reached the beach around 330pm.

We then checked into a resort hotel complex, with 10 rooms and about 7 to a room. They were apartment style with two bedrooms in each so it was comfortable.

By 4pm we met in the lobby and headed directly to the beach which was a 5 minute walk from the resort. As you can see by the photos it was a vast beach, and as summer is over was not crowded. We then spent the next two hours at the beach playing games, taking photos, and just relaxing. Of course there was a cooler of beer and soju on the side, so spirits were high and everyone was having a great time.

This is a picture of me with two of the doorman from the hotel. Great guys.Me on the beach! Jeans and a Rugby jersey on the beach? Well it was actually cold and the water was about 12 degrees. Nobody swam, though one of the girls was dumped in the water. I think it was payback for something?
Horse & Cart ride along the beach just before sunset. You can see in the background on all the beach shots that the weather on the day was perfect. Even got some colour on my bald head!

Below photo is game that translated into english is something like head in the ass! I just watched, and had a few laughs!

So after the beach at around 6pm we went to a Japanese Restaurant where we had booked the entire top floor. We stayed at the restaurant about two hours and drank a hell of a lot of alcohol, and ate so much food. There was hot dishes and cold dishes, tons of sashimi, and if I didn't mention lots of alcohol. There were speeches, there was singing, there were attempts at dancing, and overall a lot of laughs. The moment we finished dinner we then left the restaurant and headed to a disco which we had reserved exclusively for the staff from 830pm to 11pm. As I am sure you can imagine everyone was already pretty drunk, so the disco was so so much fun. There were beers on every table and the DJ played enough good music to keep the dance floor full for the whole time we were there. Everytime I tried to sit down, I either had to do a drinking game, or was pulled back up to the dance floor. I escaped a few times, but by the time we left I was exhausted. Anyway 11pm, no time to rest, so we spent the next hour walking back to the resort which normally takes 5 minutes, and then we went to a small outdoor restaurant near the hotel where we drank some more and talked until about 1am. I finally dragged myself into bed sometime after that.

This photo below is a few of us the next morning at 9am drinking beers outside a Family Mart. I woke at around 7am to a glorious day and took a walk around the beach. Thank god, no hangover.

This photo was around 10am just before we got back on the bus to leave the resort.

Below is a group shot of everyone on Team One. I know it is not so clear, but hey at least you get a sense of the size of the group. 69 Koreans, One Australian! Outnumbered huh!We then got on the buses and drove about 90 minutes to the Suduck Temple. It is very famous in Korean as it was originally one of the only all female monk temples. It was a very nice walk up the mountain to the temple as you can see from the photos above and below.

After descending from the temple we had lunch together at a traditional Korean Restaurant, had some ice cream, and then got back on the bus for our final trip back to Seoul. Eventually around 5pm we arrived back at the hotel, we all said goodbye, and parted ways until work tomorrow.

It was a really great trip and so nice to spend more time with the teams out of the hotel. This is also partly funded by the hotel, and a very good idea. Now... must get sleep!!!