Today we are at men's ice hockey where Germany is facing off against Finland. When we bought these tickets, we were disappointed that we only had one men's ice hockey game. That is because Olympic ice hockey was the best hockey tournament on the planet. All of the teams were like all-star teams, but unlike most all-star games, the players actually had something to play for - their countries and a chance to win a gold medal. Unfortunately, the NHL (national hockey league) decided this time not to allow their best players to attend the Olympics. There was a lot of posturing with the NHL blaming the IOC and IIHF (international ice hockey federation) for pulling financial support to cover travel and insurance costs. But this was essentially a smoke screen because the real issue was greed - the owners simply did not want to lose revenue from games not played during the three week long league shutdown. This was a shame. I think that the league will ultimately lose due to missing their chance to grow Asian interest in hockey, but only time will tell.
The loss for US and Canadian teams whose players usually all play in the NHL was a win for both of the teams we are seeing tonight. Finland has 38 active NHL players so their team is composed mostly of players who are currently playing in the Finnish and Russian hockey leagues. Germany only has 7 current NHL players - their team is composed of a mixture of retired NHL players and kids who are only 18-20 years old. In fact, the German team feels like a San Jose Sharks alumni team. Former sharks forward Marco Sturm is the coach of the team while former shark forward Marcel Goc:
is the team captain and former shark defenseman Christian Ehrhoff:
is an assistant captain. Consequently, we elect to root for Germany.
While we are waiting for the game to start, an older woman comes up from her seat several rows in front of me and asks if I'd like to trade pins. This is still pretty early in the games for pin trading so she has only older pins to trade. She says that while she is from Minnesota, she adopted several kids from Korea and has been here a number of time. She is attending the games with friends from Germany who have never seen an ice hockey game, so asks to trade for a pin from the 1991 German junior national hockey championships - a pin that I never expected to be able to trade, but that I put on my vest in the hope that I would. She also wants one of my NBC pins from PyeongChang. I find a couple of sport pins from Calgary 1988 that I'd like and we both end up happy with the deal.
Just before the start of the game, the arena looked like this:
The upper bowl, where the prices are lower, is packed with mostly Korean spectators while the lower bowl has mostly foreigners and is mostly empty. The organizing committee, knowing that having a broadcast with mostly empty seats in the background is a really bad look, decide to let the people in the upper bowl come down and take empty seats in the lower bowl. Our section goes from less than one quarter full to about four-fifths full in the space of a few minutes. A great deal if you brought cheap seats!
The game starts and it is clear that the Finns have a much quicker team. The Germans have also brought a pretty quick team, but it is clear that their strategy has been to try to hem the Finns into their own defensive zone to slow them down. The Finns spent large parts of the game doing the same thing to the Germans:
The Finns outshoot the Germans 11-6 in the first period, but the score was tied was 1-1 on goals by Sami Lepisto from Finland and Brooks Macek for Germany. After that, though, the Germans actually outshoot Finland for the rest of the game and do get some decent scoring chances:
Finland hangs on to win 5-2 as the Finns go wild:
The game starts and it is clear that the Finns have a much quicker team. The Germans have also brought a pretty quick team, but it is clear that their strategy has been to try to hem the Finns into their own defensive zone to slow them down. The Finns spent large parts of the game doing the same thing to the Germans:
The Finns outshoot the Germans 11-6 in the first period, but the score was tied was 1-1 on goals by Sami Lepisto from Finland and Brooks Macek for Germany. After that, though, the Germans actually outshoot Finland for the rest of the game and do get some decent scoring chances:
Finland hangs on to win 5-2 as the Finns go wild:
We are supposed to go to the Pohang snow park just east of PyeongChang tomorrow for women's snowcross (imagine a curving, banked track made snow with four spectators on snowboards), but the event begins at 10 AM which means another 7 AM walk to the train station. We are pretty worn down at this point so we decide to see if we can get different tickets for tomorrow at the ticket office just outside the hockey venue. Unlike the huge lines at the ticket offices outside the gates to the Olympic park, this line is really short. Our first choice, women's curling, is sold out (more on why in a later blog), but we are able to get tickets to the women's 5,000 meter speed skating event tomorrow night.
We had planned on eating a late lunch at Spectator Dining, but the line is huge. They had a woman walking along the line saying in Korean and English - please enjoy this food later. We don't know how long we're going to wait so we decide to eat yet again at the Taste Local food court. On our way out of the Olympic park, we notice this:
We had planned on eating a late lunch at Spectator Dining, but the line is huge. They had a woman walking along the line saying in Korean and English - please enjoy this food later. We don't know how long we're going to wait so we decide to eat yet again at the Taste Local food court. On our way out of the Olympic park, we notice this:
There is something ironic about the image of a melting polar bear. We go inside and learn some of the things that the organizing committee is doing to reduce the carbon emitted to put on the Olympics. We've noticed one of them already - there are a lot of large windmills on the ridges above the Alpensia resort. They use a lot of LED lights to reduce power consumption and at least some solar photovoltaics to produce power from sunlight. The booth also features a computer program that estimates how much carbon was emitted in order to get you to the Games and gives you an option to buy renewable energy to offset your carbon footprint.
On the walk back to the train station, we first pass a church with a lot of evangelicals taking the opportunity to proselytize, but today, they are mostly interest in my pins and want to have their pictures taken with me. I end up in about a dozen selfies along with a few group pictures, give some pins to them and head off up the hill. Just after getting off the pedestrian bridge over the spectator transport loading area, we see this:
This is a traditional (Joseon era) wedding. The guy in the middle is the priest. The groom is on the right and the bride is on the left in a dress with huge sleeves - we learn later that these sleeves were developed because the bride has to sit for a long period of time before, during and after the marriage ceremony and she uses the long sleeves to conceal food to tide her over. The bamboo in front of the priest symbolizes flexibility and the pine tree to the left symbolizes longevity. The two bowls of rice in front represent fertility, but the two wrapped up chickens had us baffled. We learn later from Sunny that the wrapped chickens means that once you marry, you are stuck with that person for life!
We get back to the train station and grab a quick lunch. Back outside, the taxi queue is huge. It is still early so we decide to do something that we hadn't previously done - take the bus in the opposite direction back to Sunny's apartment. We have to wait for a while, but eventually a 302 bus shows up and we get on. The route is different but that doesn't concern us until we'd been on the bus for about an hour. But we have no idea where we are so getting off doesn't seem like a great idea. We do get a chance to see the Sea of Japan:
About 30 minutes later, we know there is a problem because the route number on the bus is now 325, not 302. Uh oh! We are going through smaller and smaller villages and eventually, we are the only ones on the bus. We get to a point where the bus turns around and pulls off the road. The bus driver gets out of his enclosed area and walks back to us, sensing that there is a problem. Unfortunately, he does not speak English although he does show us a bus route that indicates that the 302 route is not circular, but more like U-shaped. On one end of the U is Sunny's area in Gangneung. On the other end are a bunch of branches included 325. In a flash, I realize that the bus that we got on was 302-2 and that the reason we are on the 325 bus now is because of that -2 at the end. I show him my business card with Sunny's address, but that doesn't seem to help. I finally think of using Google Translate and type out How do we get back to Gangneung station? He takes a look at my phone, smiles and indicates that we should just stay on this bus.
The driver gets back behind the wheel and I turn to Google maps to determine that we are now close to Jumunjin beach, about 15 miles north north-west of Gangneung. I occasionally check our position on Google maps to make sure that we are generally going in the right directly. We are only 15 miles away, but we are still following along a bus route and it takes us about 1 hr 45 min to get back to the train station. Along the way, we stop at "scenic" places like where buses go to get cleaned. Definitely not an adventure that I'd like to repeat, but at least we do get back safe and sound.
After spending more than 3 hr 30 min on the bus, it is now about 6:30 PM and we end up right back at the Taste Local food court for dinner. This time, we share two servings of meat and barbecued pork dumplings before catching a taxi back to Sunny's apartment.
We spend the rest of the evening editing pictures, working on the blog and watching Olympic coverage with Sunny's family. The men's 10,000 meter speed skating is on. We think that the Korean skater, Lee Seung-Hoon, must have won because they replayed the race that he won in a time of 12:55.54 at least twice while we are watching. But we finally realize that this is how Korean TV kills time during the ice resurfacing intermission (replaying the performace of the Korean athlete in that sport). After the intermission, we watch Dutch skater Jorrit Bergsma, beat Lee's time by about 15 seconds. In the heat after that, Ted-Jan Bloeman from Canada sets an Olympic record of 12:39.77 to win the gold medal. Bergsma takes the silver. Unfortunately for the Korean fans, Nicola Tumolero, skating in the same heat as Bloeman, crosses the finish line in 12:54.32 to win the bronze medal over Lee by just 1.22 seconds.
On the walk back to the train station, we first pass a church with a lot of evangelicals taking the opportunity to proselytize, but today, they are mostly interest in my pins and want to have their pictures taken with me. I end up in about a dozen selfies along with a few group pictures, give some pins to them and head off up the hill. Just after getting off the pedestrian bridge over the spectator transport loading area, we see this:
This is a traditional (Joseon era) wedding. The guy in the middle is the priest. The groom is on the right and the bride is on the left in a dress with huge sleeves - we learn later that these sleeves were developed because the bride has to sit for a long period of time before, during and after the marriage ceremony and she uses the long sleeves to conceal food to tide her over. The bamboo in front of the priest symbolizes flexibility and the pine tree to the left symbolizes longevity. The two bowls of rice in front represent fertility, but the two wrapped up chickens had us baffled. We learn later from Sunny that the wrapped chickens means that once you marry, you are stuck with that person for life!
We get back to the train station and grab a quick lunch. Back outside, the taxi queue is huge. It is still early so we decide to do something that we hadn't previously done - take the bus in the opposite direction back to Sunny's apartment. We have to wait for a while, but eventually a 302 bus shows up and we get on. The route is different but that doesn't concern us until we'd been on the bus for about an hour. But we have no idea where we are so getting off doesn't seem like a great idea. We do get a chance to see the Sea of Japan:
About 30 minutes later, we know there is a problem because the route number on the bus is now 325, not 302. Uh oh! We are going through smaller and smaller villages and eventually, we are the only ones on the bus. We get to a point where the bus turns around and pulls off the road. The bus driver gets out of his enclosed area and walks back to us, sensing that there is a problem. Unfortunately, he does not speak English although he does show us a bus route that indicates that the 302 route is not circular, but more like U-shaped. On one end of the U is Sunny's area in Gangneung. On the other end are a bunch of branches included 325. In a flash, I realize that the bus that we got on was 302-2 and that the reason we are on the 325 bus now is because of that -2 at the end. I show him my business card with Sunny's address, but that doesn't seem to help. I finally think of using Google Translate and type out How do we get back to Gangneung station? He takes a look at my phone, smiles and indicates that we should just stay on this bus.
The driver gets back behind the wheel and I turn to Google maps to determine that we are now close to Jumunjin beach, about 15 miles north north-west of Gangneung. I occasionally check our position on Google maps to make sure that we are generally going in the right directly. We are only 15 miles away, but we are still following along a bus route and it takes us about 1 hr 45 min to get back to the train station. Along the way, we stop at "scenic" places like where buses go to get cleaned. Definitely not an adventure that I'd like to repeat, but at least we do get back safe and sound.
After spending more than 3 hr 30 min on the bus, it is now about 6:30 PM and we end up right back at the Taste Local food court for dinner. This time, we share two servings of meat and barbecued pork dumplings before catching a taxi back to Sunny's apartment.
We spend the rest of the evening editing pictures, working on the blog and watching Olympic coverage with Sunny's family. The men's 10,000 meter speed skating is on. We think that the Korean skater, Lee Seung-Hoon, must have won because they replayed the race that he won in a time of 12:55.54 at least twice while we are watching. But we finally realize that this is how Korean TV kills time during the ice resurfacing intermission (replaying the performace of the Korean athlete in that sport). After the intermission, we watch Dutch skater Jorrit Bergsma, beat Lee's time by about 15 seconds. In the heat after that, Ted-Jan Bloeman from Canada sets an Olympic record of 12:39.77 to win the gold medal. Bergsma takes the silver. Unfortunately for the Korean fans, Nicola Tumolero, skating in the same heat as Bloeman, crosses the finish line in 12:54.32 to win the bronze medal over Lee by just 1.22 seconds.
Steps for the day: 13,176
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