Wesley's Tool-Box

During this year's Seollal (Korean Lunar New Year) holidays my family traveled around the country. We visited Daegu on Sunday, February 3, as I read that its National Museum had some interesting activities for the kids in celebration of the year of the Golden Pig.

One such activity was actually colouring wooden decorations in the shape of a pig. While my daughters were busy painting them, a camera crew from KBS (Korean Broadcasting System, a national public broadcaster) entered the room and started recording the area. Then they asked me if they could film us taking part in the activity and subsequently do a brief interview. I told them that it was fine.

The whole thing seemed to be for a regional news segment, so I checked to see if it aired that night. Sure enough, that was the case and my family appeared on the News 9, as you can see above. You can click on the captured frame or [here] to see the entire segment - relevant part starts around 1:30.

As the one responsible for the foreign relations and overseas training at the KPX Training Academy (formerly KPX Education Center), I had been cooperating with the Korea Green Growth Trust Fund (KGGTF), a part of World Bank Group, in running their Korea Green Growth Knowledge Exchange (KGGKE) since early 2017. The program provided by KPX within KGGKE introduces the how the electric power market and the system (power grid) is operated, how the short and long term planning is done, and what efforts have been taking place in regards to the renewable energy. Most of the participants have reacted positively to the our program.

In extending this cooperation, I was invited to the Korea Green Innovation Days (KGID) 2018 event held between May 17 and 18 in Seoul, hosted by the World Bank Group and KGGTF. There, I was given the opportunity to introduce the overseas training programs offered by the KPX Training Academy to the participants of the event at one of the working sessions. Several countries have shown interest in starting discussions for new programs.

Recognizing all these efforts, my company and I were awarded the KGGTF Partner Award (received by the head of the Training Academy, Mr. Bae) and the KGGTF Green Connector Award, respectively, at the end of the event. I thank everyone at my company that helped putting together and running the programs successfully. Several Korean newspapers have reported of this occasion.

- Electric Times
- E2News
- Today Energy
- Business Korea

While I saw many Ice Hockey matches when I lived in Canada, it was the first time my kids saw a match in person because it's not a popular sport in Korea. They were still enthusiastic about it because they read that it involved a lot of action. We were going to see the Team Olympic Athlete from Russia and Team Slovenia play. As it would end by 7PM, the timing would give us enough time to have a quick dinner and move onto see the Curling event at 8PM.


Russian players had been traditionally strong, so I expected a bit of a lopsided game. It was up to Slovenia to put up some good defense. Although our seats were at the top end of the stadium, they nevertheless offered a good overall view of the game. I brought a camera with zoom lens, but I never had to take it out.

An ice rink is generally resurfaced by driving a "Zamboni (ice resurfacer)" around. When I heard that the ice track was going to be resurfaced before the start of the 4th heat of the Men's Skeleton event, I wondered if a similar machine existed that went around the track. But it seems that the technology has not progressed that far yet - a group of men with hot air blower and brooms were sweeping and smoothing the track from the start to the finish. It was the one interesting moment in the otherwise uneventful 45-minute break before the final run that would determine the medalists.


Starting at 11:15AM, the top 20 racers participated in their 4th heat in the ascending rank order. Korea's Kim Jisoo was lined up to be the 15th to run, while the already-dominant Yun Sungbin would race the last. As the racers went past the finish line one by one, the excitement grew. With the cheering crowd, Kim Jisoo put up a respectable performance and held onto his relative position. And on the final race of the event Yun Sungbin amazed everyone with a flawless, untouchable run. He was ahead of the 2nd place by a total of 1.63 seconds, which was massive considering Martins Dukurs lost out on a medal by a mere 0.11 seconds.

The whole place went wild, and we were elated to be witnessing such a historical event up close. It was the first time an Asian athlete won medal a sledding event in Olympics. Who would have thought that the colour of that medal would be gold, and that it would be won in such a dominant manner?