Olympic dreams

After 41.8 kilometers, we were none of citius, altius, fortius, but we were all thrilled to run our last 400 meters on the track in Olympic Stadium. The plaudits of the throng may not have been as deafening as they were twenty years ago, but neither were any of us likely to face the ignominy that Ben Johnson brought upon himself on this same homestretch.

Before and After

Today was a beautiful day for a run. Blue skies, cool temperatures, and a light breeze made for perfect marathon weather. For Lee and I, running through what are usually the busiest parts of Seoul without a single car on the roads was a very new and much quieter way to see the city, while Chris and Ali got to see more of the neighbourhoods than they could in a couple days of sightseeing. Here we are at the start line. And here we are a few hours later, weary but happy with our accomplishment. Chip times won't be posted until tomorrow, but watch times have Lee at 3:35, Chris and Ali at 4:01, and me at 4:27.

Visitors

We haven't posted here for a few weeks. We had visitors. It was great. We ate food. We laughed lots. We saw sights. They made us tired. Now they're gone and we miss them. We get more visitors tomorrow. Visitors are good. Come visit us. We'll probably not post for another few weeks. We'll post more posts about the visiting visitors who visited us when the next set of visiting visitors aren't visiting us anymore.

Ubiquity Redux

We told you they are everywhere.

Ancient Ways

While in the role of Ms. Shutterbug, I snapped a few pics of the gardens. And even though being outside in the pouring rain makes me cranky, I took the time to appreciate the greenness and clean air. Then I dried off and warmed up in the nearest Starbucks, as the monks of yore would have done.

Rear view

Unbeknownst to me as I shared a quiet moment with the scenery, Ms. Sneaky Shutterbug was sullying the best vantage of the temple and the water with my big head. The stones, islands, and trees are placed exactly in the Mirror Pond to represent a Buddhist creation myth.

Kinkaku-ji

The Golden Temple is one of Kyoto’s most well-known. Originally constructed for a shogun in 1397 as a retirement home, it was converted to a temple after his death.

In 1950, a young and disillusioned monk who believed that beauty doesn’t exist in the world decided to prove that theory true by burning Kinkaku-ji to the ground. His story is fictionalized in The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima. In the novel, Mizoguchi grows obsessed with his father’s adage that there is nothing on this earth as beautiful as the Golden Temple, and comes to believe if beauty really exists there, his own image is a thing estranged from beauty. Embittered by the hypocrisy he sees all around him, Mizoguchi continually rationalizes his conviction that beauty synthesizes “the struggles and the contradictions and the disharmonies in every part of this building – and furthermore, it was beauty that ruled over them all!” Convinced that its destruction is his only path to deliverance, he razes the temple to become free.

An exact replica of the original was completed in 1955.