January 15, 2009 02:43 by
Seth after a 52 hour travel experience door to door from bad hofgastien to sung woo south korea we have arrived. the trip was made easier by a quick chance to see my sister for sushi in san fran and a hilarious book i picked up at the sfo airport called i hope they serve beer in hell. i laughed most of my way here.. a bump to business class for the leg to korea and i arrived actually feeling alright considering i have traveled 16 time zones, equalling exactly two thirds of the way around the planet. weird when you leave on a monday and wake up thursday morning with a nine a.m. practice session on a rock hard course.. needless to say i took it alittle easy this morning and will bring it up to speed tomorrow.. so we are off to a wonderfully horrible hospitality experience here in south korea. in the half hour that my teammate nate holland was at breakfast this morning he had all his prize money from last weeks world cup stolen out of his room by the room service. one of the canadian coaches got the same treatment but with less bank breaking of an effect.. my cash is permanently in my pocket for the week..
so pretty much the course sucks.. it is so frustrating to wait two years to have a chance to become the world champ and get totally demotivated by the chance of maiming yourself on a poorly designed and poorly built course.. oh well, hopefully the sun is shining on sunday so the negative 30 degree snow temps soften up a bit and i don't have to destroy too many race boards burning them up on this arctic tundra that sung woo is passing off as a race course..
thankfully the ski area stopped their practice of leaving the blaring korean pop music and laser show turned off last night and they have gone as far as putting actual mattresses in the rooms for beds. last night was the best nights sleep i have ever had in korea which isn't saying much as it only lasted four hours, since the hotel front desk crew was again this year so disorganized that it took two hours to be issued a room key.. ah.. the finer points of american life that i miss when i am far from home.. they do however have starbucks in the basement and i have six shots of espresso in my blood stream via grande mochas to keep me awake for the rest of the afternoon so i can make the 16 hour time change swap, without the help of ambien tonight.. keeping it au natural.. more as the story unfolds.. seth