PyeongChang 2018 - Day 6 (February 15th) Gangneung

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:

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:

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.

Steps for the day: 13,176

PyeongChang 2018 - Day 5 (February 14th) Gangneung

Today, we have men's curling at 9 AM so this means a really early start. We wake up around 6:30 AM and leave the house by 7:15 AM. But not before Beth gives me a Valentine's Day card. Who remembers to buy a card more than 2 weeks ahead of time and bring it with her on our trip? My wife does! Feeling for perhaps the millionth time that I don't deserve this woman, we head out the door for the long walk to Gangneung Olympic Park. But today we are lucky and a bus arrives at "our" bus stop just as we are crossing the street.

The Winter Olympics have always been contested in early February so Valentine's Day always overlaps with it. To celebrate I've put two or three Valentine's Day Olympic pins on my vest in the hopes of stimulating some trades. But do they even celebrate Valentine's Day in Korea? I don't know.

Because of the 30+ minutes we saved by catching the bus, we arrive at the venue well before the start of the match. I spend a few moments giving pins to volunteers then we head inside. The venue is in great shape:

We understand from Sunny's older daughter Minji that she learned how to ice skate and speed skate in this building, but it underwent extensive remodeling to turn it into a curling arena. It is also the only Olympic venue in Gangneung that existed prior to PyeongChang being awarded the 2018 Winter Olympics seven years ago.

As you can see from this picture, we've got a great view of one end of the four ice sheets. Sweden is going to play Denmark on Sheet A (closest to us). Canada is playing Italy on Sheet B. The US is playing Korea on Sheet C and Great Britain is playing Switzerland on Sheet D (farthest from us). The section next to us is made up of what looks like a local school group:

Usually, the teams march into the arena behind a bagpiper (because the Scots invented curling). But pipers must be in short supply in Korea because the teams come in to a recording of bagpipes playing along with a group of sign carriers dressed like soldiers during the Joseon Dynasty:

This is the first curling session at these games so we don't have any expectations about what will happen, except that Great Britain and Canada are traditionally strong every year and Korea has almost no curling history and qualified only because they are the host nation.

Just a quick tutorial for those of you who have never watched curling. Each of the four players gets to slide (throw) two 20 kg (40 lb) stones during each end (like an inning in baseball). This means that team has eight stones per end, for a total of 16. The skips (captains) decide where each team member should aim their stones:

He does this by taking his broom and putting it on the ice like the Canadian skip in this picture. The player throwing the stone starts by pushing off from a foot rest called the hack and slides toward the target. He must release the stone before reaching the red hogline located 33 feet from the hack. There are a pair of sweepers walking along next to the stone to sweep the ice in front of it:

Once the stone is in motion, the skip and the thrower instruct the sweepers on whether to leave the stone alone or sweep it. The ice surface is covered with a layer of small bumps called pebbles that keep the stone from making complete contact with the ice surface. Sweeping removes some of these pebbles allowing the curlers to speed up as well as change the direction of the stone:

The scoring area is called the house and is composed of four concentric circles at 1, 4, 8 and 12 feet from the center. The stone closest to the center after all stones have been thrown scores one point. If the next nearest stone belongs to the same team, then that stone also counts. This continues until the first stone for the other team is reached. For example:

in this picture, the US team (yellow stones) have two stones touching the 1 foot circle (called the button). If the current positions stayed through all 16 stones, then the US would score 2 points because they have two stones closer than the first Korean stone.

Once an end is completed, the curlers turn around and throw to the opposite house. Play continues through 10 ends, but goes into extra ends if the score is tied. Halfway through, the scores are Sweden 5, Denmark 2; Canada 1, Italy 1; US 8, Korea 3 and Great Britain 2, Switzerland 1. We have discovered that the Korean fans know nothing about curling because they will cheer wildly whenever the Koreans throw a stone closest to the center. But curling is less like archery and more like chess so when the Koreans throw a stone onto the button, the US will just knock it out of the way and make sure that their stone ends up in an advantageous position. We also discovered that the Korean fans have no interest in any of the matches except for the one that their team is playing. This is too bad because the other matches were more interesting than that one.

For example, the Italians rightly fear the Canadian's reputation so they are playing a highly defensive game with very few stones in play. To some degree, the strategy worked because Canada only won 5-3, but the outcome never felt like it was in doubt. The Swedes and Danes had been playing the same sort of defensive game until the Swedes scored 3 in the 5th end. This forced Denmark to play a more complex game with lots of guards (stones in front of the house that make it more difficult to hit particular stones in the house). Unfortunately, this change did not benefit Denmark and Sweden ended up winning 9-5. The US and Korea played a very offensive game where the team with the last stone (called the hammer) scored at least 1 point (and often 2 or 3) in every end. But the best match was between Great Britain (whose team is exclusively from Scotland) and Switzerland. This match had lots of stones in play, but through excellent shot making neither side was able to build much of an advantage. Switzerland had the hammer in the 10th end and managed to score one point to tie the score at 5-5, but Great Britain came back in the first extra end to score one to win 6-5.

The curling arena was at the far end of the Olympic park well away from all of the other stadia as well as the stores and sponsor pavilions, so I was surprised that this is where Coke decided to locate their pin trading center. Since it was close to curling, I dropped by to get some pins (they weren't selling any!!) and see how things were going. Coke allowed pin traders to reserve table space at specific times so that anyone coming in to this pretty small space generally had to trade with the 3-4 traders who had reserved time. One of the people was a guy from southern California that I've known for a long time so I am able to trade three media pins that I'd picked up for 2 NOC (national Olympic committee) pins from Ghana (who has one skeleton athlete) and 1 NOC pin from Nigeria (which has 1 skeleton athlete and 2 women in women's bobsleigh) - good deal! But overall, there are only a couple Koreans inside, mostly looking to see what this pin thing is all about. This is fairly typical as it takes the hosts about a week to really get into pins. Unfortunately, I'll be back in California when that happens.

It is now early afternoon and we are getting hungry so we head to the big spectator food tent across from the Olympic superstore. This area is huge - nearly the size of a football field. Inside is mostly tables to eat at. Unlike the concession stands in the venues, this one is laid out more like the place in the Seoul market where we ate - you order in one place and then pick up your food at one or more of the food preparation areas in the back of the tent. We find a place to sit and I watch our stuff while Beth waits for our food to come out. While I'm waiting, a guy who also has pins all over his vest comes over and wants to trade. The first one he wanted was one of the Valentine's Day pins - success! He trades for a couple more and I get some sponsor pins with sports on them - pins I know that I'll either be able to trade now or future Olympics. One of the pins is a Visa pin. When I chose that one, a woman who was sitting next to us says that she's glad that I chose the Visa pin because that is who she works for. She apologizes for not having any pins and asks what our favorite Olympics have been. I give her the same answer that I give everyone that asks. My favorite is the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. I like these Games the best, despite the -40 C (-40 F) temperatures because there will never be another Olympics where you drop 200,000 people into a town of 10-15,000 inhabitants and because the Norwegian fans were so great. While they rooted hard for their own team, they were appreciative of any good performance. She mentions that this week she's been meeting with the members of the Beijing 2022 observation team to work out how the Visa sponsorship will go in 2022. She says that most of the members of the Beijing 2022 team appear to have also been involved with the 2008 Beijing Olympics. This apparently causes Visa some trouble because it means that the instead of just doing what Visa wants, they already have preconceived ideas of what they want from Visa.

Beth comes back with the food just as this trade wraps up. I enjoyed my bulgogi and rice yesterday at the food court so order that again - it is one of the few Korean foods that is not spicy! Beth has something called Korean Festival noodles which is fine rice noodles and a bunch of veggies in a mildly spicy broth. Eating good food in a warm place - what a concept!

We just about finished our food when another pin trader comes over and wants to trade. She doesn't have much from current Olympics, but I take a skeleton pin and a figure skating pin from Vancouver. I'm really not interested in acquiring more old pins (a few thousand is enough), but fortunately she only wants some pins I've got duplicates of. About this time, we notice that the wind has really picked up and is blowing the tent (including the metal frame) around a lot. We drop our trays at the designated location and head over to the Olympic superstore to pick up a couple of hoodies.

It takes a while for us to figure out how Asian sizes correspond to American sizes (L in America is XL in Asia), but we figure it out and find hoodies for Sean and I. I walk over to the pin area to see if there are any new ones. While I'm there, there are a couple tremendous wind gusts and the whole metal frame of the superstore tent is blowing back and forth. It makes so much noise that everyone in the area moves away from that part of the tent. There is an announcement in Korean. We don't know what is going on, but we go to the checkout line and go back outside. When we get there, we find that they are no longer letting customers into the superstore. Apparently the announcement was to have everyone complete their purchases and leave the building until someone can determine whether the building is still safe.

Outside, the wind is really blowing. Beth needs to make sure to keep both feet on the ground for fear of being blown over. Workers are rushing to take down signs:

before they are blown away. We also see a lot of metal fencing used for crowd control that has either been blown over or laid down. We estimate the gusts at 50-60 mph.

We cautiously make our way back to the train station and catch a taxi home. When I check my email, I find that we've received a message from Sunny. We've been trying to find a time to take her family out for dinner since our schedule later in the week is difficult. Her message says that tonight will work out for dinner, but we will have to wait until around 8 PM because she has to pick her younger daughter up at the train station. This is okay with us. We have a snack and I take out my computer and start working on my blog.

Around 7 PM, Sunny's husband and elder daughter arrive home with what is obviously the younger daughter Minju. Her English is really good with very little accent. Sunny had told us that she spent a year in Canada learning about alternative education and took her then 8 year old daughter with her so she learned English by immersion similarly to how Sean learned Mandarin. Now she attends a special high school in Seoul where she is learning traditional Korean folk singing and dancing. She is home to celebrate the new lunar year with her family. She is curious about all of my pins so I explain to her that pins are the sport of the spectator and a way of meeting new people. She's thrilled when I give her one.

Sunny finally gets back from the cafe and asks us whether we prefer restaurants where we sit in chairs or ones where we sit on the floor. I think that she was worried we wouldn't want to sit on the floor so she is relieved to hear that we have done this before. I'm worried about fitting six people in her car, but she says that we can walk to this restaurant.

When we arrive, we are seated at two tables side-by-side, both with cooking surfaces:

Sunny (whose name is really Hyunsun) is on the left. Her younger daughter Minju is next to her and her older daughter Minji is at the end. Sunny's husband Jaeyoung is behind Beth. On the tables, you can see pork bellies, sausage, kimchi, mushrooms and a few unidentifiable things on the cooking surface and piles of lettuce, a soup of some sort and bowls of onions on the sides. This style of food is called ssambap (ssam is wrapper, bap is rice) and the basic idea is to put rice and other items in a lettuce leaf and eat the whole thing in one bite. You can spice your bite up by adding some gochujang (red pepper paste), but I preferred daenjang - a soybean paste. I never really got the hang of wrapping the food in the lettuce and ended up eating it like a flimsy green taco, but did manage not to end up wearing any of it. To drink, we started out with sikhye, a sweet rice drink (non-alcoholic). This was pretty good. Later we tried one of Sunny's favorites; beer mixed with one shot of soju - a clear liquor similar to vodka fermented from rice. This is somewhat like a boilermaker except that you are supposed to bang the inside bottom of your glass to release the bubbles instead of dropping the shot glass into the beer glass. The owner said that he liked the harmony of our table so much that he gave us free bottles of sikhye to take home with us. This was a great evening!

Steps for the day: 11,628

PyeongChang 2018 - Day 4(February 13th) Gangneung and Alpensia

Today, we are off to women's luge. For some reason, the PyeongChang organizers planned the majority of their events in the evening. This one starts at 7:30 PM at the Alpensia sliding center. Since this is going to be another late night, we get up around 9 AM and I work on the blog for a couple hours before it is time to go find something to eat.

We are lucky today and catch the bus to the train station instead of having to walk. Once there, we head for the Taste Local food court and discovered to our pleasure that the items for sale are changing day-to-day. I have a Bulgogi rice bowl - thinly cut strips of meat marinated in a soy-based marinade (along with some sugar, garlic, ginger and black pepper). Beth goes for grilled rice cakes on a stick.

We've got a least an hour to wait before our train ride to Jinbu. I manage to give away some of the 200 Olympic pins that I brought to give to people, but mostly we just watch some of the video from other events. One of the funny things about the Olympics is that the people who are physically present to see them know much less about what is going on than people viewing them on TV. Much of the Korean coverage seems to be replays of notable performances by Korean athletes.

We get to Jinbu and kill a little more time before catching the TS5 bus to the sliding center. When we get there, we discover that the Security checkpoint is not open yet. I give some of the volunteers pins and actually make one trade. I've noticed that a lot of the volunteers are now wearing Olympic pins on lanyards around their necks. This is a good sign that pin trading will be big by the end of the Games. Too bad that I will miss it! We end up waiting around in cold, windy conditions for about 40 minutes  before we can get in.

Our normal strategy at sliding events is to climb up to the top of the course - most fans don't want to do that much work so I get less obstructions in my photos. Then we gradually work our way back down during the competition so that we end up at the bottom when the event ends. A sign indicates that the start grandstand is to our right. We've got standing room tickets but this should be in the right direction.

We have not walked too far before we come to a gate with a volunteer. She indicates that there is no standing beyond this point. This is a surprise since we've only gone past curve 16. Oh well, there is a concession stand close by so we decide to get dinner before the crowds show up. As usual, they don't have most of the hot items on the menu so we end up with a couple steamed buns with red bean filling and hot chocolates. There is a small grandstand right below the concession stand. We still have two hours before the event starts and there is no one sitting in this section so we figure that we can just sit and eat. Nope. As soon as we sit down, a volunteer comes over and tells us that we cannot eat in the seats. We finally end up using the counter of the western food concession stand (which isn't open yet) as a table and eat standing up. Then we go over to curve 16 to stake out a position.

We haven't stood their for more than a few minutes before an American woman asks Beth for directions. It turns out that American slider Erin Hamlin's mother was a nurse at the Syracuse high school that this woman attended and they have been family friends for a long time. Erin has announced that she will retire after this Olympics so her friend wanted to honor her career by attending the Olympics as part of an extended trip abroad. She has already been in Japan and after Korea will head to Europe for six months where she will travel from England across Europe to Russia. She says that after several weeks, it is nice to be able to speak with someone in English so she elects to watch with us. 

While we are waiting, a woman in a Ukraine team jacket walks by on the path right next to the track. It is clear that she is one of the competitors. She looks at me and says nice pins, sorry that I don't have any to trade. We wish her good luck and she smiles as she heads up the track.

A few minutes later a photographer from Reuters hands me one of their pins and I trade with a couple women from the Austrian team. Good deal - I don't have to do anything except stand here! My streak continues when a woman on the German team also wants to trade. In the meantime, the crowds are starting to swell. Here is the view from curve 16:

I had thought that sliders would come from behind us and head left into the big Olympic curve at the top of the picture before going back uphill to the finish. So I was really surprised when the first forerunner went in the opposite direction! It is too late to do anything about it now, but maybe we need to go to the left when we are back in a few days for women's skeleton.

The start order for the 3rd round is from first to last (based on speed from the qualifying heat) so there are three German sliders (Natalie Geisenberger, Dajana Eitberger and Tatjana Heufner) in the first four sliders that we see. Only Alex Gough from Canada in 3rd and possibly Erin Hamlin in 5th stand in the way of a German sweep. This is a pretty normal situation as the Germans have dominated sliding events for a long time.

I was able to get a couple pictures like this one:

of American Summer Britcher, who set the track record in the 2nd round and moved from 15th place into 9th. Summer's 3rd run is not nearly as good, but she still manages to move into 8th place. But most of the pictures I took had people and/or cell phones in the picture like this one:

of Dajana Eitberger. Along the way, I managed to get a picture of the Ukrainian woman we talked to:

whose name is Olena Shkhumova as well as the third American slider Emily Sweeney:

The 3rd round goes pretty much according to expectations. Geisenberger and Huefner have the two fastest runs followed by a pair of Canadians, Gough and Kimberley McRae:

This moves Heufner into 2nd and Eitberger falls to 4th, but otherwise, the top 5 stay the same. There is a break after the 3rd run for the track workers to apply some water on the track and sweep away some snow. While they are doing that, I'm looking at my pictures and am vaguely dissatisfied. On the plus side, I can shoot at shutter speeds of less than 1000th of a second and get nice sharp images, but they all look like the slider is just nailed to the wall of this curve when in reality, they are going past us at 140 kph (85 mph). Normally, I'd try to slow down the shutter speed and try to pan along with the slider to try to keep them sharp but blur everything else, but I don't have enough space to do this without having most of the pictures obscured by the spectators crowded in next to us. Instead, here are two pictures taken within a few hundred milliseconds of each other:

During that time, Brooke Apshkrum has traveled perhaps 3 meters (10 feet). These women are really moving!

Nine sliders are eliminated after the 3rd round so only 20 sliders, from slowest to fastest, will compete in the 4th round. We are pretty cold after 5 hours in the cold and wind so we've decided that we will leave when they have a break for track maintenance after the first 10 sliders in the 4th round. Our plans change when the 7th slider, Emily Sweeney, first fishtails, then hits the roof of the track and falls straight down the wall of the curve and loses her sled. Medical people rush to her final location at the base of the 14th curve and we fear that she's been badly hurt. This results in a track hold while the medical personnel help Sweeney and the track workers get the track back in shape for the remaining 13 sliders. At this point we elect to head for the exit.

As in Biathlon, leaving early results in a much quicker trip home. Once home, we learn that Sweeney was able to walk away from the track and that the Germans Geisenberger and Eitberger went 1-2 followed by Gough from Canada. Hamlin, in her last race, finishes 6th.

Steps for the day: 11,176

PyeongChang 2018 - Day 3 (February 12th) Gangneung and Alpensia

Today we are off to Alpensia for the women's 10 km biathlon pursuit. This event does not start until 7:30 PM so I spend the morning editing photos and working on this blog. While we are sitting here, we hear a number of fighter jets taking off nearby. Apparently, Gangneung is home to the Korean Air Force's 18th fighter wing. They are responsible for enforcing the no-fly zone over Gangneung and PyeongChang - just another reminder of the challenges involved in preventing terrorist attacks during the Olympics.

We've been eating at the same Taste Local food court everyday so we want to try something different today. There is an exhibition area across the street that looked like it was going to have a cafe area when we went through it several days ago so we head over there. Unfortunately, it seems mostly designed to teach foreigners about the tea ceremony and they only have hot beverages available. So it is back to the food court. Not that I'm complaining. Not only is the food authentic and tasty, it is also incredibly cheap. A full meal for both of us including drinks is running about 9,000 krw (US $9). This is a great way to avoid the Olympic Park markup where a bottle of water costs 4 times what it costs in the food court. And while we are there, we meet all sorts of people. Today we met the mother of Canadian cross-country skier Devon Kershaw. She tells us that Devon is competing in his 4th Olympics.

We head across the street to Gangneung train station to catch the KTX high speed train to Jinbu. We've been through Jinbu a couple times now so we know the drill. The venue does not open until 3 hours before the event so we are a little early. The Jinbu station has a lot going on (Olympic exhibitions, live performances, a small Olympic store) so we hang out there for about 40 minutes before catching the TS4 bus to Alpensia. Across the aisle from us are a couple who are looking at the pins on my vest and hat. The man, who looks somewhat Asian but not quite in a way that tells you he's probably not from Korea, China or Japan. Since they like the pins, I give them each one from my giveaway pile. They thank me and hand me a small green button with Cyrillic writing. The woman explains that it says Sunrise and says that they are from Siberia. I ask them what the temperature was where they live when they left for the Olympics. She smiles and says -50 C (-58 F). Yikes! I tell her that this weather, which is pretty cold to us, must seem like summer to them. They both laugh.

After the 20 minute ride, the bus stops and we get off - and find ourselves at the entrance to ski jumping where we were before. Unfortunately, that is not where the entrance to the biathlon venue is. We have to ask several volunteers before we can find one that says that we should have stayed on the TS4 bus to the next stop. We walk back to the bus stop and wait about 15 minutes for the next TS4 bus. It finally arrives and we get on, after confirming with the bus driver that we are on the right bus. We get off at the next stop. There is no signage indicating where to go so we decide to go left. We walk for about 15 minutes before we realize that we should have gone right. Eventually, we get to the security checkpoint and begin a fairly long uphill walk to the stadium.

It is a balmy (not!) -11 C (12 F) and even after our transit detours, we still have about 2 hours until the start of the event. The venue map says that there are food concessions and a spectator warming area close by. We walk up to the concession stand and see that they have a pretty long list of Korean foods including noodle bowls (sort of like instant raman meals in the US), grilled sausage with cheese, tteok-bokki (fish cakes in a flaming hot [spicy] sauce) and steamed buns with both sweet red bean and meat fillings. We ask for two or three things and each time are told that they are not available. At this point, the cheese shop skit from the English comedy group Monty Python's Flying Circus is flashing through my mind - the joke is that the cheese shop doesn't actually have any cheese. We finally discover that they do have the noodle bowls and steamed buns with red bean filling. We go for two orders to steamed buns and two hot chocolates and then go over to the warming hut to eat.

When we get there, there are only a couple people from Finland (wearing blue and white hats with horns) and a couple Korean families, but 2 hours later when we are ready to go outside, the place is packed - understandable given that it is both cold and windy outside. We fire up our glove warmers and head out.

We find our seats, which are directly in front of a group of three Norwegian fans who also have horned hats and big signs supporting Norwegian Marte Olsbu, who already has a silver medal in the 7.5 km sprint held several days ago. Shortly after we get there, the organizers open a standing room area directly between us and the course and a huge number of people flock to this area. This means that we probably won't be sitting for the event. This is okay with us as standing at least keeps the blood moving to our feet which at this point are much colder than our hands.

Starting order for the pursuit is based on the finishing times in the 7.5 km sprint. All of the racers line up in a series of chutes:

and are released at specific times based on how far behind gold medalist Laura Dahlmeier from Germany they finished. You can see part of the shooting range behind them. Off to the right is the penalty loop - a skier has to take the 20-25 second penalty loop for each shot they miss.

Dahlmeier heads out first to a huge cheer:

and is followed 24 seconds later by Olsbu:

as the Norwegian fans behind us go nuts. After the first few competitors, the spacing get much smaller:

The skiers head up the bridge and on to the uphill part of this 2 km (1.2 mile) course. When each skier completes their lap, they head slightly to the left and come back through the tunnel (where the Olympic rings are in this picture) and into the shooting area. Each person shoots five shots, twice in the prone position followed by twice standing.

The Norwegians are excited because by the time that Dahlmeier re-enters the stadium after her first lap:

Olsbu has already cut her lead in half. Unfortunately for them, Dahlmeier makes all five of her shots and Olsbu misses once; falling from 2nd to 6th during her one penalty lap. While Olsbu is falling back, two-time Olympic gold medalist Anastasiya Kuzmina from Slovakia has moved up from 13th into 3rd. Kuzmina's two victories were both in the sprint and uses her superior speed to gain ground on Dahlmeier. Kuzmina is only 9 seconds behind after both women miss one shot in the second shooting stage. Kuzmina erases the rest of Dahlmeier's lead during the 3rd lap and leads by a second as they come into the stadium for the first standing attempt:

But Dahlmeier again has no misses while both Kuzmina and Olsbu both miss twice. Kuzmina is now nearly 40 seconds behind while Olsbu drops into 10th place 70 seconds behind Dahlmeier. The only skier making inroads on the leaders is Anais Bescond from France. She started in 19th position and has worked her way up to 4th after three shooting cycles by only missing once.

Dahlmeier comes into the stadium for the 4th shooting cycle and again has no misses (she now has one miss in 40 attempts in the sprint and pursuit events) and is cruising to victory. But the race for second gets much tighter when Bescond again makes all five shots and Kuzmina misses once. Kuzmina is now in second by less than 1 second. It is still neck-and-neck when the two women get to the straightaway to the finish:

But Kuzmina's skiing is just too strong and she hangs on to claim the silver. Bescond is thrilled to take the bronze medal.

Now we have a decision to make. Although it appears that our ticket was only for the women's event, it does not look like they are going to clear the venue before the men's 12.5 km sprint that starts in about 40 minutes. We could easily stay, but it is really cold (at least to us) and if we stay, we would get home at midnight again so we elect to head for the buses. This was good as we were able to get on a bus to Jinbu right away and were able to catch an earlier train to Gangneung right away. The taxi line at Gangneung station was not very long and we were home in just over an hour from when we left the stadium. A miracle as this same combination has taken us as long as 3 hours previously!

Steps for the day: 8,094

PyeongChang 2018 - Day 2 (February 11th) Gangneung

Today, we are off to a women's ice hockey game. Since these tickets were purchased more than a year ago, we had no idea who would be playing. But today is our lucky day because the game is USA versus Finland, two of the top three teams in the world. The game doesn't start until around 5 PM so we sleep in, then spend some time blogging before heading out.

It is Sunday and, based on the sign at the bus stop, there are no buses coming anytime soon. So we have another long, cold walk to Gangneung train station. Since the food was so good yesterday, we again stop into Taste Local Food Court. This time we have a nice big bowl of udon (thick noodles) soup and steamed buns filled with red bean paste. As we are leaving, it looks like another performance is getting ready to start across the street at the train station:

At first, I thought that these might have been the North Korean cheering squad, but these women are much too old and don't have the security detail with them. They go out one side of the station to perform and we head the other way, back up the hill to the Olympic Park.

After passing through security, we still have plenty of time so we visit Korea House, where there are some culture games for kids and information on tourism, but not much else. Then we go next door to Tokyo 2020 House. This is mostly a site for the various members of the Tokyo 2020 team observing the Olympics to meet and talk, but there is also information about the proposed venue layout and a short video with a guy in Noh theater makeup talking about the themes for these Olympics. I have to say that we didn't pay too much attention because we've already made up our minds that we will attend.

These two visits took much less time than expected so we next go to the Samsung pavilion which is right next door to the hockey venue. I know that they have pins to give away, but like Rio, the catch is that you have to take a selfie of yourself and the various staff members who are talking about different Samsung products like OLED flat screen TVs, smart home products and, of course, cell phones. Then you take the selfies back to the entry area and download them in exchange for pins. Sorry, we decide that this is too much work and head for the door.

Outside, we notice that the gates to the hockey venue are not open even though we are now less than 90 minutes from the start of the game. Beth goes over to a volunteer (non-English speaking as it turned out) and points at her ticket. The volunteer looks, then gets a kind of shocked look on her face, shakes her head and points toward the exit. At that point, I guessed what the problem was - there are two hockey venues and we are at the wrong one. Beth thinks that it is only a matter of going to the other venue in the Olympic Park. I explain to her that the other hockey arena is on the opposite side of Gangneung.

We hustle back to the spectator loading area and after asking 2 or 3 volunteers how to get to the Kwandong Hockey Centre, we know what bus line we need to take and where that bus picks passengers up. It appears that not too many spectators are expected to go this way because this bus isn't running very often. We spend about 40 minutes waiting and talking to a couple from Texas in front of us who also are at the wrong venue and are trying to get to the North Gangneung transit hub (which our bus also stops at) to get to their event. Finally, the bus arrives and, thankfully, it is going to Kwandong before the transit hub.

Kwandong Hockey Centre is on the campus of the Catholic Kwandong University, which is where Sunny's husband teaches Anatomy. We hurry across campus to the venue and get to our seats about 5 minutes before the puck drops to start the game. Whew! There are a lot of Americans here to see Team USA play.

As we are settling down, we hear a familiar voice on the public address system. It turns out that Danny Miller, who is the public address announcer for the San Jose Sharks hockey team and the San Jose Earthquakes soccer team has been selected as the English-speaking game host for the Olympic hockey. He has also worked the Summer Olympics as an announcer for field hockey.

Even though the Finnish team is ranked 3rd in the world, there is a long distance between the 2nd ranked Canadians and the Finns. This means that the Finns have to play a very deliberate style in order to stay in the Game. Here are some pictures:

Notice that in all of the pictures, the Finns outnumber the attacking Americans. So, despite a huge territorial advantage, the Americans can't find a way to score, or even get shots on net. It stays that way until Venla Hovi steals the puck in the US end and sneaks the puck past US goaltender Maddie Rooney with 6 seconds left in the first period. This is the perfect situation for Finland where they can sit back on defense, make the US attack and just wait for a mistake to counter-attack.

In the second period, the US comes out firing:

Their pressure is rewarded when Monique Lamoureux-Morando scores unassisted 8 minutes into the period. The American crowd, who seems to be mostly made up of the families of team members go wild:

The relentless US pressure is starting to wear down the Finns and they begin to take penalties to keep the Americans from scoring. This leads to a US power play goal by Kendall Coyne 11:29 into the 2nd period. We find out later from Sunny that Kendall's family is staying at another of the properties that she rents out on Airbnb. Now the US has the Finns right where they want them because now it is the Finns who have to attack and take the chance of making a mistake. But for now, the Finns defense holds and the score remains 2-1 after two periods despite the US having a 34-14 shot advantage.

The 3rd period had much more back and forth action as the Finns try to mount some offense. But both defenses are equal to the task and there is no scoring until Dani Cameranesi puts the puck into an empty net:

with 13 seconds left in the game. Final score: USA 3, Finland 1. 

As the US players celebrate on the ice and look to share the moment with their families, we head for the bus queue. The volunteers at this venue do a good job of getting us to the correct line. There is even a little art along the way:

It is these small touches that really make the Olympics memorable.

This spectator loading zone has a covered, but unheated, waiting area. They appear to have utilized the same queue system that Disney World uses because you actually have to go quite far along in the queue before you see exactly how long the queue is. Worse, it appears that they've misjudged the number of spectators that want to go back to the train station compared to the number that need to go to one of the bus transit hubs. As a result, it takes us nearly an hour to get through the queue and onto a bus. Along the way, we discover that a large number of people in the queue are Americans who are staying in Seoul and spending about 2 hours on the train in the morning and again in the evening. This is a result of the very tight housing market for these Olympics. There apparently were a few local hotels that were available, but were not accessible on the major travel apps and whose managers were trying to rent rooms in large blocks to the Olympic family instead of to individual spectators. This reminds us of Lillehammer when many of the Americans stayed in Oslo rather than staying with families like we did.

We get back to the train station, get into the taxi queue and after about another 30 minutes, arrive at Sunny's home. The transportation system does seem to be working, but it is surely taking a lot of time to get from one place to another.

Steps for the day: 13,406