Tuesday, October 7, 2014

The Asian Games experience

Asian games 2014 was held in Incheon in South Korea! After missing the opening ceremony and all the games in the first week, I got a chance to go to the stadium on the final days: We went to see the track and field events. Oh! what an experience it was!

Not many Koreans in Seoul seemed interested or even seem to know that there was this mega event going on in Incheon. But I was delighted to go when my family was ready! The weather is just perfect now in Korea. It took us around 40 minutes to reach Incheon Geomam station from Seoul by subway. Then we took the free shuttle which was conveniently parked on the entrance of the subway station to the main stadium. The night view of the stadium was awesome and the enthusiasm of the crowd was contagious. We were able to see the track and field, shot put, javelin, long jump, high jump and triple jump for both men and women.

The main stadium of the asian games
The main stadium of the asian games, 2014 Incheon
Main stadium during Athletics, 2014
Athletics going on in the main stadium


Track and field events in Incheon
There was not much crowd as you can see, just die hard fans and family of the athletes. Mostly the home team supporters. We were able to sit right in the front row and have a marvelous view. We watched the women's 4X400m relay win the gold medal in live :D It was an super experience to jump and cheer and shout at the top my voice! My son was downright appalled at my raucous behavior. But our screams were infections and he caught the yelling bug too! We became instant celebrity among the kind Koreans who acknowledged the Indian team's massive victory in the relay.

The victorious Indian women won gold


Moon Art at the Asian Games main Stadium
Moon Art at the Asian Games main Stadium

The Asian games stadium was more than just track and field and tennis courts and swimming pools. It is a huge park open to the public and many other always-available facilities like biking tracks, jogging tracks, fountains for the kids to play during summer and many more.
yet another art piece at the Incheon main stadium
We were deliberating on this piece of art. Dh said that it looks like a snake hactching or a duck dipping its head into the water. Whatever it could be, we had a great time discussing it :)


The cricket Stadium
The cricket Stadium
Our next game in the Asian Games was to watch the cricket match. No, India was not playing. But with IPLgeek as your son, one has to make some amends and so we went to watch the match between Afghanistan and SriLanka! This was no match for the red and gold ambience of the Chinnamswamy stadium during a RCB match. The clamour of the crowd was not electric. Yet, it was nice to see a cricket match on a foreign soil.

But it was nothing to complain about though. There were few shots, lots of wickets and the fun started when the supporters of Srilanka and Afghanistan had a fist off! And we had the best view with us happily situated between the Srilankans on the right and the Afghans on the left. The ever-vigilant Korean police was instantly there on the scene and were multiplying with the minute! I felt like I had Z-security allocated to me and my family :)
The cricket stadium
The cricket stadium


Z-level security


The fountains surrounding the stadium

And yes, there was a food festival going on with food from all around the world. 

Oh yum!

With all the events played and done with, the stadium was bare but there was a lot of other things to do.

The stadium at twilight. 
Our world Tuesday Incheon Asian Games

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