PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics

After our Olympic fail earlier this month, and after hearing all the stories from my friends about their experience at the Olympics and after all the hype, I REALLY wanted to go to the Olympics.  Every day I would search on the Facebook groups, to see if anyone was selling an extra ticket.  One morning, I happen to get lucky!  I found that there was two tickets to the figure skating singles for Women!  The only problem, it was tomorrow!  I quickly replied, "I want it!" and went to work trying to figure out what I was going to do about kids, and school drop off and pick up and Little Monster!  The best part about this ticket was that it was through ITT, so transportation was provided!  I asked Kevin if he could get off, so he could come too, but that was impossible.  I spent the entire day getting everything situated with the kids.  I was so excited that I got everything to work out!  I was even more excited about the chance to go!  For Reals!  An Olympic success to make up for the fail!  I wanted to go so very bad, that I didn't care that I was going to go all by myself!  I was even prepared to take Little Monster, if I couldn't find a sitter.
As luck would have it, my neighbor has a sitter for her son on Wednesday, so she said to just have her sitter watch the Monster too!  So fabulous, I don't have to take a monster in tow!

The bus was scheduled to leave at 5:00 AM, with a report time of 4:45!  As if my day wasn't already going to be magical, I found out that four of my friends were also going on the ITT Olympic day trip too!!!  When the olympic tickets went on sale back in November, they had decided to make a girls day out of it and all got tickets together.  I was so happy and excited that I would have friends to share this time with!

I met Corianne, Ruth, Heather and Kara at the bus.  We all sat in the same area on the bus and chatted for a little bit, before the bus turned the inside lights off and we all took a long 2 hour nap to the event.

When we arrived, we were at the exact arena that Kevin and I had attempted to take the kids just a week ago.  It felt so empowering to have a ticket and to be able to pass the border to the other side!  I think having the Olympic Fail, made this experience so much more amazing, powerful and magical!

One thing Koreans definitely know how to do right, is selfie spots!  All around the venue are great picture perfect spots!  Here are a few:

We walked around for about an hour.  We found the Olympic Rings and got a picture, of course!

There was also a huge North Face Exhibit.  North Face had tents set up and each tent represented a different area.  There was a cute fire in the middle and lots of picture spots!

We made our way back to the entrance, because that was where the ice skating rink was located.  The Ice Skating was at the Gangneung Ice Arena.

When we got into the arena, we found our seat in the back with the rest of the ITT peeps.  Since I was not seated with the other four girls, I took an aisle seat that was empty by them.  As the event started, the rest of them just came over and sat by me.

We started talking to the two women behind us.  Come to find out, they are the family of one of the ice skaters who were competing from Belgium, Loena Hendrickx!  As we were asking them questions about Ice skating and her daughter, a man comes over and sits next to them.  We find out he is the male olympic skaters for Belgium and Loena's brother, Jorik.  We talk to Jorik for a good half hour learning the ins and outs of Ice Skating.  I know that if you don't have a picture, it really didn't happen, but I promise!  It totally happened!  We tried to get a picture a few times, but we just didn't feel right asking.  Dang, I should have been the tacky American, and just taken the dang picture!

About 1/4 of the way through, Corianne come back from going to the bathroom, and tells us that there are five seats super close to the front that she was just told we can move to!  So we leave the ice skater and his family for better seats!

We were totally stoked to have some super great seats now!  We were only about 6 rows up! We watched the rest of the Ice Skaters!  The final 6 were absolutely enchanting!

They skated with such grace and beauty!  There really was a huge difference between the first three heats and the last one.  These women were worn with ice skates.  Being in the arena and feeling the music course through your veins, having your nose chilled by the air, and feeling the hum of the spectators is an experience I will treasure and always remember.  It really was magical.

When the event was over, we had about an hour and half to walk around and go to the Official Olympic store.  As with all things Korea, the line to the store puts Black Friday Walmart lines to shame!  There were so many people! So. Many. People!

Luckily I have lived here a while now, so when I got in the store, I had no problem with the zero personal space, or the fact that there is not curtesy of waiting your tuen to get something, you simply elbow your way in, grab the scarf you want, and elbow and duck your way out.  I proceeded to slow and duck and grab all the things I needed for the official store and quickly got in line so I could check out in time to catch the bus home.  I was able to come home with a few beanies, scarfs, mittens and magnets!