Three Busses and a Taxi
By Jana Mangubat, Mass Communications '19, Posting From the Phoenix Snow Park, South Korea
What do you do when you have a day off at the Olympics? You go see other events!
Many of us have seen the biathlon, but we all have been itching to see something else. Five of us decided to go see the Women’s Snowboarding Cross event, which initially did not seen like it was too far from us. Boy, were we wrong. We started our morning on a 7:20 am bus from our resort to the Media Center. We arrived at the Media Center and caught another bus to Jimpu Station. From there, we got on our third and final bus of the morning to the Phoenix Snow Park. We got there just in time for a 10:00 am start, thanks to Salli’s careful planning. We settled ourselves in the crowd right at the finish line and watched the preliminary runs that would rank the snowboarders for the quarterfinals. We were crammed in the crowd, and some of us needed to take a step away and get some food. We were looking for hot dogs, but instead ended up with barbecued sausage on a stick and a can of pringles. This sausage was not what we expected, it was more like a large maple flavored breakfast sausage.
After our interesting lunch, Gina decided to try to see if we could get seats in the stands. Thankfully the nice woman in charge let us in, and we had our choice of seats for the remainder of the event. We were so excited that there was one American that made the finals, Lindsey Jacobellis. Sitting in the stands, there is a real comradery amongst the countries. Between races, we were kept busy with lively songs and dancing. It was an amazing experience, and we all found ourselves wanting our loved ones at home to be a part of it. I think we all took turns making FaceTime calls so that we could share just a small part of the event with our families. We were all on the edges of our seats as the finals started, and Lindsey was in the lead for a good part of the race. In the end, we were all sad to see that Lindsey came in fourth place.
We decided to stay for the celebration, which is what happens at each location when the medals are decided. Each athlete takes their respective podium and they receive a stuffed mascot, named Soohorang. The actual medals are handed out later in the day at the Olympic Plaza. It was then time to take our three busses back to our home for the month, and we returned to our room at about 4:30.
It was a long day, but very worth it. Once we returned, we realized how hungry we were, so we once again bundled up to go out. We took a taxi to a restaurant that our students have been raving about, named Mom’s Touch. It’s basically a Korean Chick-fil-a, but spicier. It was a tasty end to our amazing day of Olympic experiences, and we all made memories that we will not soon forget!
By Jana Mangubat, Mass Communications ’19, Posting From the Phoenix Snow Park, South Korea
