I'm on a bus...

Coming to you live from TM 26.
My favorite podcast network, Rob Has a Podcast, always signs on with the line, ‘coming to you live,” and for this post I thought it particularly appropriate.
As I write this, I am on TM26, which is the media shuttle from the Gangneung Media Village up into the mountain cluster, ending with stops at the Main Press Center (MPC) and International Broadcast Center (IBC). The climb into the mountains is significantly shorter than it was in Sochi, when I would spend an hour each day making the trip toward the outdoor venues. This time the ride is about 40 minutes and the return trip is even quicker, because the buses go much faster downhill than they go up the hill.
Whatever the case may be, in Sochi I often wrote my blog posts on the bus from the coast to the mountains and would then post them when I got a chance to get connected to the internet in the media center.
This time, however, I am posting this directly from the bus, ‘live’ you could say.
And that is one of the most incredible things about these PyeongChang Games, at least in my mind. It seems that no matter where you go you can find an internet connection. Almost all of the buses I’ve ridden on have had wireless and obviously the press center and the venue media centers all have wireless service. The media housing also has wi-fi, making it possible to do work from my apartment and there’s even wi-fi service available in much of the common area of the media village.
In Russia, there were times when I had a hard time connecting to the internet with an Ethernet cord plugged in. Here, thankfully, the wireless is good enough that I haven’t had to worry too much. The only area that has been a concern so far is transferring the large files from my computer to the company server so our pagination department can do their job. I ordered a wired internet account, but didn’t realize until I got here that the new computer I have does not support normal Ethernet cables. Luckily, I have a friend in Korea, Lee Kelly, who is coming to the Games later this week and said he’d bring along an adaptor for my use. That should make it easier to send pages for next week’s papers.
That being said, with the fantastic wireless service, I have been in touch with people back home really easily through Apple’s iMessage service, which runs on wi-fi. I haven’t even needed to use the SIM card I purchased. I’ve even done radio interviews using the wi-fi and the signal was nice and clear.
PyeongChang is certainly the most wired Olympics I’ve experienced, though that experience is relatively limited.


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