Cheryl & I have been in Korea (Incheon & Seoul) for a nearly a week now, and tomorrow will travel with the Korean team to Shanghai. Theres about 200 people registered for one competition or another.

Seb etc & half the Australians will also arrive tomorrow, not sure about the Singaporeans or the Russians. The Other australians will cut it fine & arrive on friday.

Judge training has been happening since yesterday (6th Aug), so a couple of the Koreans are already out there.

Its rained a great deal in Korea since we arrived. its not usual for it to rain here, but this is the rainy season…

Olympic park’s surface is one of those really slippy ones if there is a drop of rain on it, so the weekend in seoul was tricky, though Yeoido park has a normal surface (tarmac), and in Incheon, the surfaces is like that of Olympic park, but they have that super smooth area underneath, in the subway station, that Ive seen in vids.

I haven’t really practiced my combo for shanghai whilst ive been here, as have been trying to learn some new things, particularly some really great basics. We’ve both been really lucky with the help that we’ve been given.

They are all extremely friendly. Weve been hanging out with Crazy Slalom, No Break, Remix & Narsha (the freeride part of No Break). Craxy Slalom are based in Incheon, No Break & Narsha were at Olympic Park (though they came to Incheon tonight for the indoors area), and Remix skate at Yeoido Park.

Im really nervous about going to shanghai & meeting everyone. I think tomorrow will be a tense & peculiar day.

its going to be an exciting competition, especially with the two australian competitors. Its their first competition, and they are my ’students’ from melbourne & brisbane. They will be the first Australians to compete in a competition. Talk about baptism by fire. If im scared, I can only imagine what they are.