Closing Ceremonies

Tueday, February 5th

Brandon is done with all his events so we went to watch the cross country skiing relay and an alpine skiing event.

Closing ceremonies were awesome! You can watch them here:

Closing Ceremonies

4th Place in Super-G

Monday, February 4th

Brandon took 4th place out of six in his division in the Super-G (super giant slalom). Sunny and 37, but so very windy today.

Cute snowmen they made between races:

5th Place in Slalom

Sunday, February 3rd

Brandon's slalom competition was today. He took a fall on his second run and ended up finishing in 5th place out of 6 in his division.

After the awards, they held a big reception for the families. Huge buffet with tons of food. I tried everyhing, even the one that looks like magots. It was very spicy.

After the party, the shuttle took us to the beach. All fireworks are legal year round here, and they sell them at the beach. So we ran around on the beach shooting off Roman candles. It was so much fun to do something here that's illegal in the US.

It started dumping snow, and there was about a foot overnight.

Free Time and Interesting Stuff

Saturday, February 2nd

Since there was a rain day Friday which cancelled some outdoor events, Brandon's events have all been postponed by a day. So instead of watching him compete, we had a free day wih nothing scheduled. We decided to go watch some other events. We watched some snowshoeing, cross country skiing, and figure skating.

Someone forgot to hit the spell check key before printing ths sign:

Our shuttle busses were beautiful:

Cell tower made to look like a tree:

Does anyone want us to bring this back for a souvenir? LOL

We dressed up in traditional Korean clothing:

Brandon built a snow sculpture:

Rain, rain, rain

Friday, February 1st

It poured rain all day. Several events were cancelled. Luckily, Brandon didn't have any competitions today. Pam and I went on a tour of Gangneung. The tour bus was awesome. Brand new bus that still had the protective plastic on the TV and clock.

First we visited a fish market. The city is on the east coast (Pacific Ocean). There was dried fish and fresh fish. Wow, this market went on for several blocks. Here's pics of dried stingray, live crabs stacked up, and some other fishies.

Our next stop was a gramaphone and Edison museum. Huge collection of antique music players, and stuff Thomas Edison invented.

Lunch was delicious and we stuffed ourselves and really have no idea what we ate. Our tour guide took us to a traditional Korean restaurant. 

4th Place Finish in Giant Slalom

Thursday, January 31st

Brandon's Giant Slalom competion was today. Beautiful, sunny 40 degrees. His times were very consistent and he finished 4th out of 8 snowboarders in his division.

I finally figured out how to add pictures to this blog. I borrowed Brandon's tablet and so I'm learning as I go. I will add pics to the previous posts today as well.

Athlete Assessments

Wednesday, January 30th

Team USA snowboard assessments were today. Brandon's times were  56.19 and 58.14 seconds. That put him in he intermediate class.

We checked out the cultural center and some really neat artwork. We also bought tons of souvenirs.

I'm having a hard time with the internet connection here at our hotel, so I can't upload pictures today. I will add them as soon as I can!

Here's the link to the video of Opening Ceremonies:
Opening Ceremonies

Opening Ceremonies

Tuesday, January 29th

Breakfast buffet included scrambled eggs, hot dogs, salad bar, and lots of pastries. We caught a cab at 11:00 to Alpensia resort since the shuttle didn't run until 2:00. It's about a 40 minute ride. We saw Brandon right away and he ran to us. But he didn't have time to hang with us. We shopped a little at the resort and then caught the shuttle to Opening Ceremonies. Wow, there were so many shuttle busses! At least 60 I'm guessing. Opening Ceremonies was AWESOME! Check out the pics on Team USA's Flickr site. Their pics are way better than the ones we took.
Team USA Photos

After the ceremonies they hearded us like cattle back onto the shuttle busses. Our bus was the last to leave and when we got to Alpensia most of he shuttles to he hotels had left. We wandered around for about half an hour looking for our bus. Turns out it was right by where we were dropped off!

Travelling to PyeongChang

Yesterday was Monday. Our hotel offered toast and coffee but we had to make the toast ourselves. That was the most fun I've ever had making toast!

After breakfast we caught the shuttle back to the airport to meet the shuttle to PyeongChang. We went early so we could shop an get lunch before the shuttle. Since the toast didn't really fill us up, we decided to eat lunch first. Our lunches were beautiful and delicious and only cost about $9.50. Huge spoons.

After lunch we ended up not having time to shop which sucks cuz the Incheon airport is gorgeous and huge and has so many cool stores. We boarded our bus for the 3 1/2 hour drive. We stopped at a unique rest area half way here. Wow I don't have any words to descripe the "toilet"....its a porcelin hole in he ground. Yummy food vendors at the rest stop made it worthwhile, though.

The bus ride was a blast. We visited with families of athletes from Illinois, Washington, North Carolina, Canada, Greece, Norway, and Belgium. It was awesome hearing  their stories and telling Brandon's story. We arrived at our hotel at about 7:30. Good news is we have an 8th floor room with an incredible view of the slopes all lit up. Bad news is we have an 8th floor room and I don't like elevators. We hung out with our new friends the rest of the evening.

We're Here!

We have arrived safely in Seoul.  Our flight from Boise to San Francisco was uneventful. We had a 4 four layover in San Francisco and then our flight to Seoul was funny. Before we even took off some dude tried to stuff a very large bag in the overhead bin and he just kept shoving it in there until snap! He broke it. That delayed takeoff cuz they had to call maintenance.

Then the aiplane's chiller needed a fuse so they called maintenance again. We finally took off and he rest of the flight went well. We met several other athlete families on he plane. United Airlines was great. They let us get up and walk around on he plane.

We arrived at he Incheon airport in Seoul at 4:30. We went through immigration and customs. Then we rented a cell phone. Its much too expensive to use our smartphones here. Then we went to the World Games welcome desk to pick up our credentials. This all took about 2 1/2 hours. By the way, we hadn't slept yet. We tried to sleep on the plane but it just didn't happen. By he time our shuttle to the hotel got us there, it was 7:30.

 

 

Dinner was an adventure. There are about 2 dozen resaurants within walking distance of he hotel. But they were all in Korean. So we just walked into one that smelled good from he sidewalk. Thank goodness the6 had an english menu. We just pointed to what looked good. It was delicious.