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Picture – Taking a team picture before the opening ceremony. Team getting goofy. |
Thursday, October 4 |
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The day started off early again. Up at 5:30, breakfast at 6:45 and then off to the archery range for official practice and equipment inspection. The IPC Archery Technical Committee Chairperson, Ann Webb, inspected my blackout glasses and found them acceptable. This was great news for VI archers. They will no longer be restricted to sleep shades at IPC sanctioned events.
When we left the hotel it was raining, but by the time we got to the field, the rain had turned to mist and had stopped by the time we began shooting. Then we just prayed the sun wouldn’t come out because it was so humid, it would be like a sauna. I met the other VI archers and we exchanged pins, which is a tradition at these events. Steve and Melissa are shooting for Great Britain, Lorenzo for Italy, Gabriele for France and Rubin for Belgium. It was really fun shooting together in a line. Lots of pictures were taken of the different setups. Lots of countries are interested in starting VI archery after seeing us shoot. In particular, South Africa asked if they could film us so they could present it back home.
As you can see by the picture above, we all dressed in our official uniforms for the opening ceremony. It was really exciting. There are 30 countries participating with a total of 380 archers. The team leader from each country carried their country’s flag and followed the banner carriers onto the field as the country names were announced in both Korean and English. Then there were lots of speeches from local community leaders and IPC representatives. The speeches were all in Korean and translated into English. When they announced “Let the games begin,” they shot off rocket type fireworks into the air. One of the Korean athletes noticed that I was cold and gave me his jacket to wear. It was a very nice jacket with a beautiful Korean silkscreening. I was hoping he would let me have it, though. My teammates were quite jealous. We tried to hunt him down afterward to return it and wound up giving it to his teammate. Then I was afraid I may have insulted him, not knowing if he had intended me to keep it, but our translator, Scarlet, said I did the right thing. The Korean people are really polite and generous. They make us feel very welcome.
The food continues to be interesting. We kind of go for the American stuff for lunch because Courtney gets hungry. Koreans in this region seem to eat a lot of sushi. Not exactly our cup of tea. I love the salad greens and the rice dishes. I especially like the rice porridge in the morning. The chicken is good, but the mushrooms that accompany it are kind of rubbery. At the opening ceremony they passed out pine tree candy which was very different. Tasted a lot like eucalyptus.
Tomorrow is the first day of competition. I was very happy to find out that the VI archers’ will begin competition tomorrow because the on line schedule didn’t show us starting until Sunday. This is going to be great!
Another early day tomorrow. I will call the JAWS class in the morning before we go to breakfast. The uniform for tomorrow is khaki pants and navy blue shirts.
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