Justen Ortiz Does Korea

Justen Ortiz in Asia - Part 2 Korea from Landyachtz on Vimeo.

The second part of my trip brought me to Korea. I was a little apprehensive heading to a new place because I was nervous about Japan and became comfortable and relaxed about it...Only to suddenly have to leave again and travel somewhere new and unfamiliar. The only thing to do was to embrace it. 

I met a few people from Korea last summer and had the opportunity to show them all of our favorite Vancouver spots. Now it was time for them to return the favor. Seeing some familiar faces at the airport set my mind at ease. My friend Jack was there to pick me up and take me back to his shop called Mind Boardshop. It was a really cool shop that had skateboard, longboard, and snowboard gear. The first day we spent driving around Seoul a little bit to visit some of the other local skateshops and meet the owners. After that we had an awesome Korean barbeque style dinner and headed up to a ski resort for the night so we were closer to the hills in the morning. 

We cruised around the resort a little bit after getting up early for breakfast. Jack and his Boardshop are organizing a downhill event there soon, so I got the opportunity to check it out first hand and I am sad I won’t get to attend it. We set off to the first spot which was a pretty fast downhill run with lots of sweeping corners down a highway. You definitely have to make sure to stay in your own lane so you don’t turn into road pizza from a car. The first run down I decided to stay behind Jack so I could follow him because I didn’t know what to expect. After the first corner Jack suddenly got speed wobbles and took a nasty bail going about 70kmh. Since I was right behind him when this happened, I had nowhere to go and slammed right into the back of Jack. I escaped with only a few scrapes but Jack was left laying on the pavement in agony with a swollen hip and a lot of road rash. We decided to take it easy for the rest of the day and had some lunch followed by a relaxing round of golf. We spent the night in a different resort this time and were able to get closer to our skate spot for the next day. 

We showed up to a spot that was one of the craziest roads I have ever seen. It was an insanely steep road that was filled with over a dozen consecutive hairpins. It was almost impossible to stay in your own lane this time but luckily traffic was calm and you could see a car from miles away. After a good warm up, we were off to the next spot for the day, a super long and fast highway bomb down a mountain pass. You had to watch for oncoming trucks but all the corners had mirrors on them so you were able to spot the corner before entering into it. 

After a good solid day of skating we went back to Jacks shop where I met up with the rest of his longboard team called the Wheelbugz. I told them I wanted to experience some crazy food while in Asia so they brought me to eat the weirdest food I have ever seen yet, live octopus. The server pretty much just brought a bucket out with 4 octopi swimming around in it. I would have never been able to grab one myself and eat it unless the server did it for me and shoved it into my face. The taste wasn’t bad but weird part was the texture and the fact that it was clamping its suction cups onto my lips and trying to escape. Jack told me beforehand that octopus was a natural source of taurine and it gives you lots of energy. It was something I have never experienced in my life. I tried to sleep that night but laid in bed for 4 hours. I couldn’t fall asleep. 

The next morning I spoke with Jack and the others that ate octopus with me and they told me the same thing. They couldn’t sleep that night for some reason. Myself, along with Jack and the rest of his team were pretty tired from lack of sleep but we forced ourselves through and went off to skate. We spent the morning at their favorite slide hill to warmup before we left for the big event. Mind boardshop was throwing a big slide jam for the whole longboard community. We had about 40ish people from the surrounding areas come out for it and everyone had a blast. The event went off without a hitch. After we celebrated with a nice traditional meal it was time to party Gangnam style, in Gangnam, South Korea. It just so happened that an old friend of mine that was living in the Okanagan region of British Columbia with a Korean exchange program was back in Korea. I got in touch with him and told him to come out. It was pretty awesome to get to see him and weird at the same time that we both happened to be in Korea at the same time. 

The next morning I was off to China. Jack and the whole team came to the airport with me and it was a sad goodbye. I felt pretty nervous again leaving somewhere that I just became comfortable in but I knew China would be a whole new adventure that I was excited for.

Follow the adventure on Justen's Instagram #justenspacificrimjob