Korea & Japan

Snapshot

Working in the travel industry, we hear the phrase “trip of a lifetime” so often, it can start to lose meaning. Especially since we spend so much time planning the trip of a lifetime for our clients, we don’t always stop to think about what that means for ourselves.

In the winter of 2018, David went on his own “trip of a lifetime” to the Olympic Winter Games in South Korea, followed by a week in Japan with his brother.

“A trip like this required more planning than I had ever done on my own trips before, to ensure everything went smoothly.”

In the below itinerary, he visited Seoul - Pyeongchang - Gangneung (all within South Korea; combined with Japan, the entire trip was about 4 weeks total)

Highlights

Visited the eerie Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea, perhaps the most tense and heavily fortified border in the world
Toured the imperial palace, explored Namsan Park, and sampled local Korean BBQ on a city tour of Seoul
Attended the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in South Korea!
Took in bobsledding, skicross, and snowboarding events at the Olympics
Watched the US vs. Canada teams battle it out at the women’s hockey finals game for the gold medal
Explored Japan’s fascinating culture, food and scenery with his brother

The Plan

Ever since Canada hosted the games in Vancouver, I had wanted to go experience the Olympic Winter Games in person.

Russia 2014 was impractical for a number of reasons, but South Korea 2018 was feasible. I started my planning in late 2016 to figure out what I needed to do. The airfare, accommodations, and event tickets were purchased nearly a year in advance to ensure I got what I wanted, without the already inflated costs going even higher due to demand.

I decided to be there for the last week of the 17-day Olympic schedule, as this is when the more high profile competitions would be decided and more medals would be awarded.

I also thought that, while I was over there, I would take an extra week to visit Japan afterwards, and then make a final stop in BC on the way home to visit some friends. In all, the entire trip was nearly 4 weeks away from home.

In this entry, I will focus mainly on the Korean part of the trip.

My brother, Mark, met up with me in Japan and we did that part of the trip together.

Travelling with Mark was another unique experience, as my brother has high-functioning autism, which adds additional layers of complication and preparation to the trip. *I wrote a separate blog article on the experience, available at the link and at the end of this article.

Seoul, 3 nights

I arrived in Seoul on a Sunday afternoon, and took the bus to my hotel - the 4-star Hotel Grammos in the Gangnam area of the city.

The Han River cuts right through the middle of the city, and the land to the north of the river is the older and more historic area, where many civic and national institutions are located. South of the river is the modern downtown area where Seoul’s business and nightlife culture proliferate.

Gangnam is one of the more well-known areas of Seoul; the area is the home of the rich & famous of the city, yet is also popular with young Koreans, making it a fun and lively place to stay.

The area immediately around my hotel in Gangnam was quiet on a Sunday afternoon, as it was primarily surrounded by businesses and office towers that had little activity on a Sunday, but during the week it was much livelier.

On Monday, I took a tour out to the Demilitarized Zone (‘DMZ’, pictured).

This is the area in between North and South Korea, separated by high barbed wire fences, plenty of lookout towers, and a no-mans land in between. It is one of the most tense and heavily fortified borders in the world, and a pretty strange place.
You can visit some of these areas on one of the few officially sanctioned tours of the area, where you also learn the history of the conflict between north and south.

The highlight is the trek down below the ground to the Third Tunnel, which was one of several tunnels that was dug or attempted to be dug underground between the two countries over the last few decades. When it was discovered by authorities, it was sealed off at the border, but tourists can enter it from the south side and walk all the way up to the border.

On Tuesday, I toured the city of Seoul itself - some of it on my own, and some of it with a local guide from Urban Adventures on their "Soul of Seoul” tour.

During my exploration of the city, I visited the Imperial Palace (pictured), saw the changing of the guard, and climbed the hill of Namsan Park.

I finished off the day by enjoying some local Korean barbecue - a must-have!

Gangneung, 3 nights

On Wednesday, I set out by bus from Seoul to the city of Gangneung, which was the secondary site of the Olympics.

Pyeongchang, located in the mountains, is where most of the hill events took place; but Gangneung was where the arena events were.

Gangneung was about 45 minutes away from Pyeongchang along the east coast. More importantly for accommodation purposes, Gangneung still had places available to stay, unlike Pyeongchang - even though I booked nearly a year in advance!

The Olympic Games are considered the world's foremost sports competition, with more than 200 nations participating. The events draw huge crowds of fans from all over the planet. So, attending such special events requires a lot of advance planning - the earlier you can start booking, the better.

In Gangneung I stayed in a dorm room at the Ocean Capsule Guesthouse, and paid about 10 times the normal non-Olympic rate for my tiny cube of space. But, for such a special event event you just have to be prepared to pay a premium just for being there.

The Olympic organizers had set up a shuttle system, providing free transportation between event venues, the Olympic village, and various large parking areas outside of town. After leaving my things at the Guesthouse, I took the shuttle to Pyeongchang to visit the Olympic village, where one of my first stops was Canada House.

This is a pavilion the Canadian Olympic Team set up as a place where Canadians can gather to watch events with other fellow Canadians, and meet various athletes and TV personalities. When I was there, I was fortunate enough to run in to Patrick Chan (pictured, left) , Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue (pictured, right), who were all very kind and gracious with their time!

Me and Patrick Chan (and his gold medal!)

My first event was that night, the women’s two-person bobsled final.

I learned that watching bobsled races live is actually not exactly the most spectator-friendly of sports…

Basically, you see two seconds of a coloured blur whizzing by you, and then watch the rest on a monitor.

But it was still a great introductory experience to the Olympic events, and I got to see Canada take home a bronze medal.

The next day (Thursday) was the big event of my trip, the women’s hockey gold medal game.

I had purchased tickets for this event hoping for it to be a duel between the two favourites, Canada and the USA - and my prediction was accurate!

As both teams arrived for the Olympic finals that day, loud cheering filled the arena. You could feel the patriotic spirit in the air.

It was a close, and hard-fought battle that went to a shootout.

The USA team ultimately won, leaving Canada to settle for a silver medal. What a game… any hockey lover can understand; the experience of watching such an important game in person was amazing.

Olympics selfie! Here I am, at the women’s skicross final

On Friday, I headed back to Pyeongchang to catch the women’s ski cross final.

I didn’t really know what to expect out of this one, but it turned into one of the more memorable events of the trip!

What is Ski Cross?

Ski cross features downhill skiers competing not against the clock, but in direct ‘heats’ (competitions) against each other, with 4 racers at a time flying down the hill.

Like freestyle skiing, ski cross incorporates terrain features for athletes to master - the courses include big-air jumps and high-banked turns. Any intentional contact between competitors leads to disqualification, but watching multiple skiers perform at the same time is a blast, and definitely gets the adrenaline going.

Canada had two skiers in the final heat, namely Kelsey Serwa (who was the favourite) and Brittany Phelan.

Brittany was originally on the bubble to even make the Olympic team the previous year, but an injury to another teammate - plus her own strong results - brought her to Pyeongchang this year.

She finished in second place, just behind her teammate Serwa who took gold.

Womens' ski cross final winners at the podium

It was such an emotional and inspiring moment to watch her on the podium celebrating her first medal (pictured).

Saturday was my last day at the Olympics.

In the morning, I watched the men’s Big Air snowboarding final, in which another Canadian athlete, Sebastian Toutant, captured the gold medal.

What is Big Air?

The Big Air competition involves a single launch from a ramp into the air - snowboarders perform jumps and tricks mid-air and are judged accordingly.

Being in a rather condensed space, we all got really great views of all the tricks, and were super close to the action.

It’s hard to capture the epic-ness of this event in photos, but as you can see, I tried.

There is nothing that compares to the in-person experience!

Later Saturday afternoon, I said goodbye to the Olympic village and its cute animal mascots (pictured), and then took the train back to Seoul for the evening.

The plan was to spend my last night in a hotel close to the Seoul airport, because I was flying out the next morning to Osaka. There, I would begin the Japan portion of my trip.

Japan

I arrived in Osaka on Sunday, and met my brother Mark who also arrived on Sunday.

You can read about my adventures in Japan, as well as a number of other useful considerations when it comes to traveling with people with autism, by clicking on the link below:

Traveling with Autism, by David Liotta

Are the Olympic games on your Bucket List?

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