Games on!

So, we're in the middle of an adventure...up at Lake Placid for a big deal of a sporting event, the Empire State Winter Games.  The Man and I are the proud parents of one of the many young athletes who processed out onto the 1980 Olympic ice-rink for the Opening Ceremony.  Wow!

The Girl's skating event is tomorrow morning.  So it's time for early nights all round.  I shall tell you more about everything soon - here are a couple of photos to keep you going:

The Man adds...this historic arena is where Robin Cousins won Olympic gold, but is known by most Americans as the home of the Miracle on Ice.

As if by magic...

The Man has performed the amazing trick of flying for fourteen hours and arriving at his destination before he set off - ah, the wonders of the international date line!

He is safely home.  Hooray!  Rather tired after 24 hours with no sleep, but still able to celebrate with a slice of belated birthday cake.

He won't have long to catch up with himself, because tomorrow we're all off on another adventure.  Tune in next time to find out more...

Jangsan Mountain

The Man writes...it's great to wake up on your birthday to the view of the sun rising over the ocean. A great shame to be away from the family, of course, although we did get together in the virtual sense. Here was the view from my end:

I took an early run along the beach, enjoying the views from an attractive park on Dongbaek Island.

After brunch I headed out for the main challenge of the day - the 650m peak of Jangsan Mountain. This turned out to be a six-and-a-half hour hike, largely because I kept getting lost. The higher areas of the mountain are a maze of quiet, narrow unmarked trails, with many intersections and almost no signposts.  I followed an arrow saying "Peak 1300m" and half and hour later came to one saying "Peak 1700m".

There were other signs to keep me on my toes:

When I finally reached the summit, for a while I had it to myself (until a gentleman turned up and kindly took a picture of me looking suitably haggard). Despite the cloudy weather, the views over Busan and the ocean were amazing.

  
Then it was just a question of trying to find a way down before nightfall...

Ski fun

We were back on the slopes yesterday, enjoying another good afternoon of skiing.  This is the first year for me when I can put "enjoying" and "skiing" together in a sentence and really mean it - up until the last few weeks, even, anxiety was outweighing enjoyment - but at last the scales are tipping the other way.

It's another tough year for ski resorts, though - they're having to put in a lot of work making snow as there's not a whole lot falling from the sky.  The warm weather last week turned everything to slush, and they were just lucky that the temperature dropped again enough for it to be worthwhile activating the snow guns.

We skied hard yesterday, and might have gone on until late only the lifts closed at 5pm, on account of some sporting fixture (and/or its commercial breaks) that everyone else seemed very keen to get home to watch.

Feeling the beauty of life

The Man writes...after rounding off a generally successful work week Saturday morning, I jumped on the train for a 1 hour $3 ride to Busan, Korea's second city.

I headed straight for the coast, specifically Haeundae Beach. It was a sparkling spring-like day and the beach was crowded.

Away from the crowds I discovered a coast path - the Dalmaji-gil Road, which the sign promised was "one of the eight best sceneries in Korea". It added:

Dalmaji-gil Road is like our long lifejourney.

Feel the beauty of life at Dalmaji-gil Road

I walked through pine forest to a beautiful fishing harbour with two lighthouses.

Finally I climbed up the hill to Haemaru pavilion, built in 2005 for an APEC summit, to watch the sun set.

Freeze a jolly good groundhog

Groundhog Day all over again.  Punxsutawney Phil is, to use US weather parlance, "calling for" an early spring.  Six weeks from now I must try to remember to check if he's right.

It was also Ice Cream for Breakfast Day.  We joined the friends we usually join for this annual celebration of the sweet, cold stuff.  Most of the kids then ran around outside.  The sky was blue and the air was freezing.

Later it was also freezing standing around down at the rink, where I watched the Girl try out her new skating dress (at her coach's suggestion) as she practised her routine.  She worked hard and looked good and there were no wardrobe malfunctions, so fingers crossed she's all set for her next competition.

Hair today gone for Tomorrow

Remember this time last year, we went to see an excellent Middle School production of Guys and Dolls? 

Tonight the Girl and I were in the audience for Annie.

Once again it was an impressive production, with excellent singing and some nice ensemble pieces.  Annie herself gave a great performance, though she looked rather older than the eleven-year-old she was playing (while most of the "adults" looked rather young).  That was maybe the most difficult aspect of the show to pull off - kids playing kids alongside kids the same age playing adults.

It was a good fun evening.  I saved my daughter from deep humiliation by managing not to blub.  Kudos to all the cast and crew, and especially to the teenager playing bald-headed Oliver Warbucks: the youthful actor had gone above and beyond for the role by actually shaving off all his hair.