March 1st, or Samiljeol , is Independence Movement Day in Korea. On this day in 1919, over 2 million Korean students and civilians participated in peaceful protests nationwide against the Japanese military rule in Korea. The Japanese basically freaked out and 7500 Koreans were killed, 16,000 wounded and 46,000 arrested. This event sparked change toward Korean independence. It is a national holiday. We chose to observe it by taking advantage of the long weekend in PyeonChang with the Ts.
PyeongChang happens to be the home of the 2018 Winter Olympics. A total of 799 olympians participated in the games. It is a tiny little village and I kept wondering how on earth they supported so many visitors during the olympics.
The city nickname is Happy 700, because most of it is 700m above sea level.
Fun fact: it was rebranded for the olympics as 'PyeongChang' (with a capital C) to avoid confusion with a city called Pyongyang in North Korea. Because nobody wants to book their flight to the wrong city and deboard the plane in North Korea!
They were holding in their excitement as all the equipment was rented.
There's Eli, just hanging out in the gondola behind these two movie stars.
Daisy is my inspiration. Three hundred seventy-one days ago she left the ski slopes with a spiral fracture in both her tibia and fibula. But this girl got back on that horse again. She took baby steps, but they were steps in the right direction.
The hero of the day was Daddy. He had plans to play in the snow with Eli for a small bit and then go home to work on his big homework project. Instead, he spent the first half of his day walking Daisy up the hill about 3 football field lengths, then walked with her down the hill. Over and over.
Don't get me wrong. I did my part as a parent. I mean, someone had to ski with Zekers.
She continued to practice on her own by walking up the hill and coming down. I was proud of her determination.
My ski buddy and I hit the slopes together. There are 28 slopes in all. We tried our best to hit as many as we could, but we only got to a handful of them.
Lijee was content to play in the snow as the Daddy was helping the Daiser down the bottom portion of the hill.
Finally Daddy and Lijee went back to the hotel. Daisy tried the lift once and was not feeling good about going down the mountain. 
At the end of the day I thought I was going to gracefully jump from mogul to mogul down this steep blue. That's not quite what happened. I slipped on some ice and went sliding about half way down the mountain before I could jab my pole into the ground to stop me. Then I was anything but graceful as I manipulated my way down. Guess I'm a little out of practice.
Chuey got to come along for the trip. After a day of skiing this is how we all felt.
Unfortunately when we were skiing, Linda came upon Daisy and I recovering from a spill, and as her ski was hooked on Daisy's she gracefully did the splits. As graceful as it was, by the morning she could barely walk. They headed home, switching out Chuey for Susie.
After sending the Ts down the road, we started our day with the Alpensia Olympic Ski Jumping Tower. It was not hard to find because you can see it pretty much from anywhere in town.
As you enter, you come across Kwanseol Pavilion. This cute little shack was built to commemorate the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.
Kwanseol means 'observing snow.'
A few lucky people were able to observe the ski jump during the olympics from this view.
We were able to walk onto the field, or into the arena, or whatever it's called.
Of course the kids had to throw a few snowballs.
Then we decided to go up to the ramp.
It got steep pretty quickly. The kids were sliding down.
Those little plants on the slope a purposely planted for the skiers to be able to judge the distance to the ground.
We were waiting our turn for the little monorail cars to go to the top, wasting time. Then we got yelled at for being on the slope. Athletes are still using this for practice, just not this day because it was a Sunday.
Here is a sneak peak of how it feels to be an olympic athlete.
Finally time for us to board.
The tower is 900m tall.
We were there right around noon, so we could only go to the 4th floor, which is the lounge and observatory. The 2nd and 3rd are where the athletes actually get on the jumps, as well as the Daegwallryeong Ski History Center. Sometimes all you can figure out is 'no' but you don't understand why. This was one of those times. For some reason the 2nd and 3rd floors are open in the morning and afternoon, but not around lunch. I would have a bunch more boring facts for you if we could have visited the museum.
The view from the top is pretty scary!
That's the luge for the bobsled event back to the left.
Abe and I took the stairs down because the elevator was full. We got a view pretty close to where the jumpers actually start. The thought of strapping on skis and going down that...absolutely terrifying.
Next we played at Yongpyong. We jumped on the trampoline,
patted some animals,
ziplined,
rode snow-tricycles,
and enjoyed some Turkish ice cream.
The fun didn't stop there.
We wasted a lot of money played video games in the arcade.
These two mostly played this pirate game together. They let me join by controling the steering wheel for them.
What a great Independence Day weekend. This is how hard we all slept when we got home.
[February 26]
No comments:
Post a Comment