Olympics Opening Ceremony Commentary

The interesting thing about our commentary this year is the time zone difference. Amanda watched the Opening Ceremonies over twelve hours before I did. So she and Blake (her mixed doubles partner) made their comments. And then hours later I watched it with my team and made my comments and replied to a lot of hers. Just sort it out best you can. Because of the time zone difference there are even events we get to watch live together.

Also interesting, I get NBC commentary. Amanda gets either no commentary, random commentary of unknown origin, or NBC commentary.

So, here it goes.

Amanda: Watching the Opening Ceremonies without NBC commentary is a very different experience. If there was a story with the dance-y stuff, I don’t know it. Recognized a few cultural items from my travels there. They got right to the parade of nations too – a much shorter cultural presentation thus far. I like how they are projecting the country names onto the stadium floor.
The country names are being show on the screen too, but no info on how many athletes.
Our delegation seems smaller than usual. I realize that in general, the Winter Olympics are smaller than Summer, but still.
I love that Bermuda always wears Bermuda shorts.
Blake’s comment on Slovenia’s team uniform – none of them are getting run over tonight.
We are just cruising through this. Smaller delegations. Shorter track. Maybe because there are no commercials and so it’s proceeding at the proper speed.
Also, since this is proceeding in order of the Korean alphabet, I have no idea where we are in the process.
Blake points out that it’s interesting that it’s Chinese Taipei and not Taiwan.
There is an athlete from Turkey who winked at someone. But who!? And how did she know to wink at that moment? Did she know that the camera was on her?
The Tongan flag bearer is back.
Puerto Rico gets its own delegation!?
Do any of our other territories?
Getting a little teary with the joint Korean delegation.
More cultural presentation!
This flame has done everything!

Lisa: I’m excited to watch it! I’ll let you know if there’s any interesting commentary. And especially if there’s any crazy commentary.
Iddo, looking at a bag of Japanese candy: I see that they wrote it all in Japanese.
Me: Yup.
Iddo: Why didn’t they write it in Hebrew?
Me: Because they don’t speak Hebrew in Japan.
Awesomeness about doing our commentary on WhatsApp this year – easy copy/paste from the laptop version to my blog.

Amanda: Please do!
Ha! Silly girl.
Yes!
I also realized that we will be able to watch some things simultaneously with the live feed. It will be the packages and edited prime time stuff I miss.

Amanda: Curling time!

Lisa: 👍🏻
🥌
Opening Ceremonies start here soon.

Amanda: I’m curious how long they take for you. Without commercials or commentary or editing, we were done in 2 hours 15 minutes.

Lisa: Broadcast started almost 30 minutes ago and we still haven’t gotten to the ceremonies.

Amanda: Interesting.
We turned them on just after start time right as the countdown hit 1. No filler here!

Lisa: Iddo: Mom, why are they having them talk about it?
Me: So that you can get to know them and care about them.
Brett: Iddo, do you care about them?
Iddo: No.

Amanda: Also, the commentary for live curling sounded different than the replay from yesterday. More dry and only one person. I feel like there were two during the replay.
Ha!
Also, I’m heading out for the day. So, no new commentary from me until we get home. Looks like we have at least luge and short track speed skating to look forward to!
It’s Norway with the crazy pants https://www.metro.us/sports/crazy-curling-pants-norway

Lisa: I got the first half hour of the Opening Ceremonies broadcast. I’m going to miss the first half hour of the replay now. But by the time I go to bed tonight I’ll have seen the whole thing.
Things Brett learned while watching the Parade of Nations with the kids – there’s a country called Togo. It has 2 delegates. The Tongan athlete that followed them was shirtless and covered in coconut oil, which Brett believes was freezing to his body. He was in the summer Olympics two years ago and switched sports.
What is up with the gloves on our Opening Ceremonies outfits?
It was a representation of the origins of Korea from the mountains and how everything comes from the same source and so it’s possible for everything to exist in peace and harmony. The two sided drums represent the Yin Yang, which originally meant the north and south side of the mountain, which both represent the mountain, and now means opposites existing in harmony. The drumming was showing how we can accomplish so much together. Now you are all caught up on the commentary before the Parade of Nations.
It’s the largest winter Olympic team ever actually.
And not just from us, that’s all countries.
I noticed that while watching curling yesterday.
Vice President Pence was there as the political leader from our country. He brought as his guest Fred Warmbier, whose son, Otto, was a prisoner in North Korea for 17 months before being sent home in a coma and shortly after died. Seated behind VP Pence was Kim Yo Jong, the sister of Kim Jong Un. Just how many political statements can be made in one night?
Brett thought that was a rather interesting statement as well.
The song after the Parade is 600 years old and about how you can find beauty in tragedy.
The thing that gets me about Asian cultures is how ancient they are. And so continuous.
The US coats have a heating element in the back to keep the wearer warm.
I actually do not like the song “Imagine.” We need to live for more than just today. We need something to die for because then you have something to live for.
The song presents a false illusion of peace. It’s a good illusion though because a lot of people have bought into it.
The lighted rings over the ski slope were drones.
Wind chill at the raising of the Olympic flag is -14. I hope the Tongan guy had a coat waiting for him.

Amanda: I saw that he switched. Wonder if he’s actually any good at his new sport.
They looked like reindeer or something in the brief glance I got at them.
Nice! And very interesting! Thank you!

Lisa: They are leather with fringe on the side of the pinky fingers.

Amanda: Cool!

Lisa: I figured that was the type of commentary you’d be interested in.

Amanda: We figured out Pence and the Sister. I also recognized the prime minister of Japan and his wife very quickly. Did not know about Mr Warmbier. Wow.
Also neat!
I agree about this. I love it.
Nice! I could use a coat like that.
Agreed. The sentiment of doing away with the things that divide us is good, but I don’t agree with these specifics.
Changing trains. Brb.

Lisa: I’ve noticed that the prime-time type commentary is different than the on-demand and live commentary.
Dang! Talk about a stair workout getting that Olympic flame up that hill.
The two women carrying it up the stairs are on the Korean women’s ice hockey team, one from the north and one from the south.
They said that due to time there were some aspects of the ceremony that they weren’t broadcasting but all of it, sans commentary, is available online. Running time including commercials from the finish for broadcast was 2.5 hours.

Amanda: Thanks! We were wondering! They were really neat.

Lisa: Goblins have magical abilities that help humans and give us luck.

Amanda: 😬 I hope so too.

Lisa: It’s goblins dancing after the cauldron lighting.

Amanda: Okay. That’s definitely weird. Makes about as much sense as reindeer.
Definitely!

Lisa: I like watching the Opening Ceremonies for the cultural information they share.

Amanda: Makes sense I suppose, though that does make for extra work and cost.

Amanda: Seriously!

Lisa: Here’s a good picture of the gloves – https://slate.com/culture/2018/02/team-usas-opening-ceremony-outfits-for-the-pyeongchang-games-reviewed.html
Pretty sure our kids didn’t see all these fireworks at the end because I didn’t hear them crying, and they would’ve.

Amanda: The announcers at the stadium announced that, and the other torch and flag bearers names and roles.
Hmmm. I wonder what you missed.
I am not currently remembering the goblins. 🤔

Lisa: Fire dancers at the end.

Amanda: Are they going horseback riding later? 🤨

Lisa: Probably just shortened songs and dance things.
They’re taking up falconing.
We’re all cowboys here, remember?

Amanda: Ha!
Okay. Sort of coming back.
Bummer. Those were cool. Also probably didn’t see ALL of the parade of nations.

Lisa: I think they showed every country for at least a moment.

Amanda: Me too! I’m looking forward to the Tokyo Games to see what I already know and can figure out without commentary. I also suspect I will get homesick.
That must be it.
Riiight.
We got equal time with all of them.

Lisa: I had to watch the US team take selfies for probably 10 minutes as they walked in.

Amanda: So, to have this all make sense in a blog, you’re probably going to have to put my responses as if we were actually going back and forth and responding immediately.

Lisa: 8 other countries were announced while they kept showing us. After the commercial break they went back and showed the ones they missed for just long enough to say what the country was and who was carrying the flag.
I’m not sure how I’m going to organize it for the blog. I’ll figure that out tomorrow.

Amanda: 😂
🤦🏼‍
👍🏻

Lisa: Also tomorrow I have to figure out more than what socks I’m going to wear for my lesson on Sunday, like, the lesson.

Amanda: For a second I was worried because that would be too late. But then I remembered that it’s Saturday tomorrow for you.

Lisa: Time zones are crazy things.

Amanda: Very.

Lisa: I’ll be picking it up with snowboarding and luge tomorrow morning it looks like from the broadcast schedule.

Amanda: 👍🏻