3.September

In the morning the arrangements started. 10 buses had been pushed here and all the people were arranged based on countries. Then we drove (staying in traffic jams in between) to the firing range facility that dated back to the 1988 Olympics shooting gallery complex. Near the facility on top of a hill took place a trial of the gadgets and sightseeing of the local forest in a 27 C heat.
The forest consisted of thick hollyhock bush (that is actually the national flower of Korea) and an esker of 30–40 metres. Steep slopes did not make for running on the contour line and the bush rendered this completely impossible. But as it proved later in the contest, that was still rather comfortable landscape.

In any case, I couldn’t hear 1 fox with a 2 m gadget and when later consulting with the author of the gadget, this simply had to be credited to the use of earmuffs that had wrong resistance. On the last day, this mistake also got rectified but it was already too late. The peculiarity of the local forest was that during day time some insects were (local locust maybe) chirping so loudly that at times their sound was louder than the beeping of the ‚fox’ in the earmuff.

The representatives of the local media were present at the training and the show went on in full swing. When watching telly at the hotel, I could count more than 50 television stations broadcasting in the local language. It seemed that some of those had then come to make an overview of the contest. In this respect it is interesting that the area of South Korea is only twice that of Estonia, whereas there are around 33 times more inhabitants. In case of such a size of population, there are enough watchers for the 50+ local TV channels.

Going back went more smoothly, since the organisers had arranged an effectively functioning police escort in order to keep to the timetable and save us from traffic jams. After the lunch the opening ceremony took place in the conditioned hall of the Suwon University where it was very pleasantly cool.
The opening ceremony with all the speeches and performers and the fireworks lasted around 2 and a half hours which had a pleasant and enduring impression. So large-scale a ceremony had not been seen in the ARDF contests before. This was a real surprise from the organisers to the participants and it showed that the event took place at a very high level. Also, nice girls and active break-dancers were there at the opening. Besides, girls could even play the violin and national percussion instruments and pipes. It seemed to me that it was a live performance, without imitation (though I won’t bet of course).

Mr. Kim Moon-soo, the governor of Gyeonggi-do was also present at the ceremony, and declared the World Championship open. Photo by Ken Harker WM5R

At the same time, this province is more like one big city where there are rice paddies and mountains in between the city districts.

Kalle and Andres decided to spend the evening walking in Suwoni and with the assistance of local advisers they managed indeed to move between the hotel and the city by local students bus, ticket of which cost 800 Wons (8 Estonian Kroons).

Dinner took place outdoors in the hotel garden. The mayors of Suwon and Hwaseong who had also been at the opening ceremony, were present at the dinner and held short pre-dinner speeches. We ate a lot during the contest. The only trouble was digesting all the stuff, as the fish dishes coupled with egg dishes tended to cause constipation.

What was very characteristic of Korea was that you had to consume plenty of water, since warm climate and mild wind made the water quickly evaporate out of the body and in order to be able to take a piss in the toilet you had to drink a lot of water.

Numerically there were 411 participants of whom some 340 sportsmen from 31 countries went to forests.