Let's go to town

Because the DH race was cancelled early on Sunday, a few of us were able to head into town to check out the Olympic Village in the Mountain Cluster and what other sights there were to see. The TD, Thomas, the ladies from the Race Office, Lucy & Jaana and Cassie, the wife of Tommy who is the Deputy Chief of Race joined me for a few hours in town.

We got dropped off, first at the Athletes Village and quickly figured that our driver was mistaken (or we were) and before he left, we jumped back in the van.  He then took us to the Olympic Village, where the Olympic Stadium is, that hosted the Opening Ceremonies.

We did a bit of wandering around to get our bearings.  It was obvious we were in Snow Land...

You could tell that there were pixie lights in just about every tree and many LED lights around town that would make the entire area look great at night but during the day, not so much but we did find more flags...

We went into Festival Park, a cultural building that highlights Korean foods and regions of the country. 

Most of the Olympic cultural & buildings are essentially temporary structures (ie huge Sprung Tents)and with the high winds in the region, the tents walls were flapping loudly and the wind chill was annoying....but we learned a few things about South Korea.

The free samples of soju were tasty...

 

and we even met some Canadians....not sure what gave them away.  They were visiting from Edmonton.

 

I also found my first Olympic typo. 

 

One thing is for sure, they do know how to re-purpose sea containers...wax cabins, offices, washrooms, Mediacal Stations.

 
There was a tubing park...

and there must have been some kind of 'tough guy' race that just finished because we found these guys....

 

 
 I do not believe they are with the Tonga Olympic Team.

We found the Olympic souvenir store - the Super Store and it was a gong show. We all wanted to buy souvenirs, so it was an important box to tick on this trip.

Inside the store, we set off in all different directions and said we would meet back in 90 minutes.

With the volume of people in the tent and the line up outside, we needed the 90 minutes.

You will be happy to know that I bought a PyeongChang souvenir pencil for everyone who has been following my blog. Hopefully, there isn't more than 4 of you.

And...we found more flags....



We also found the Medal Plaza - which is not too busy until the evenings.


We went through security 3 times in our wander around the Village and it was a good thing we were wearing our accreditation because to even see the Medal Plaza, you needed to have tickets from an event that day (or accreditation).

We found Descente House - only because we tripped over it. The hosts was very nice to us.

We saw the new lines of their gear - they offered us Red Bull and we went home with pins and pens all around.

We were getting a bit peckish late in the afternoon - so we stopped at a convenience store.  We passed on the Cheese Burger-flavoured Pringles....

and the dried squid...

I settled on a couple of 4 packs of beer for post-Team Captain Meeting wind downs.

The rest of the group found treats in a Paris Baguette store.  In fact, the cake was delicious. It went well with my beer.

B.