"A TALE OF THREE CITIES" Vancouver, IPhO team finishes training at UBC Our four days in Vancouver are over. We manage to squeeze in, between many hours of fooling around, two mock exams. Here's a sample problem, which happens to be from a past CAP University Prize Exam paper: Supernova SN1987A produced neutrinos of all flavours with an energy of 15 MeV. They travelled 1000 light-years to Earth and 12 were detected at the Kamiokande water-tank in a burst lasting 12 seconds. What limit can you place on the maximum mass-squared difference between neutrino types in this observation? (If you can solve this problem, you might just end up on the IPhO team! If not, there’s still hope - only two of us solved this.) The team leader calls for a taxi (no limo this time either) and we're off to the airport. The delegation consists of the leader and his wife, the deputy leader, and the five of us. On our arrival, we go straight to check-in with Singapore Airlines. The agents there are nice people, and they become even nicer to us when they find out we are the IPhO team! Our celebrity status doesn’t help much, though, when Ali's Iranian (a.k.a terrorist) passport is flagged for some careful scrutiny. This happens because if Ali gets denied entry in Korea, Singapore Airlines has to pay to fly him back! After about ten minutes of hushed words between agents, they finally relent and give Ali his boarding pass. Singapore Airlines is one of the best airlines in the world, and for good reason. If you’ve ever flown with them you’ll agree with me. On their Boeing 777’s the economy class seats themselves are just as comfortable as those in Air Canada first class, and since the flight to Seoul is only half full we get two seats per person. Furthermore, their KrisWorld in-flight entertainment system is in a class of its own, with personal LCD screens at every seat and on-demand access to hundreds of the latest feature films and TV shows. You can even play networked games with other passengers on the flight. Needless to say, we soon forget about all the practice problems we planned to do on the flight! After we pass through security screening, we realize it would be a good idea to bring some Canadian souvenirs to Korea as gifts for our hosts. Unfortunately, since we only thought of this after arriving at the airport, our only option is to peruse gift shops that sell key chains for ten dollars. We finally decide on a stuffed beaver and a box of chocolates. We board our flight and discover that Singapore Airlines stewardesses are all dressed in beautiful traditional Asian garb. The wonders of flying with this airline never cease! The takeoff, unsurprisingly, feels exactly like being on one of those electric buses in Vancouver. As soon as the seat belt warning lights go off and the entertainment systems are activated, we go berserk playing with the screens in front of us. I start by watching a few movies, and when that gets boring I try some Nintendo games. Somewhere between all this I challenge Amir to a chess game. At one point I’m up by at least a knight and a bishop, so naturally I start taunting my opponent verbally, saying how embarrassing it would be for the smartest team member to lose to the dumbest one! As soon as I say this I’m made to eat my own words as everything goes wrong. I end up losing my queen and forfeit the game in shame. Seoul, the IPhO team during a layover After ten hours in the air, our plane lands at Seoul-Incheon, which is by far the most impressive airport I have ever laid my eyes upon. We pick up our luggage and head to border security, or whatever it's called in Korea. Now, I don't know whether this is an isolated incident or a general trend, but Korean border officials are hilarious. I don't pay attention as the people in front of me pass through, but when it's my turn, I go and present my passport for inspection. The official looks it over, and instead of welcoming me to Korea he makes this abrupt, loud grunting noise and jerks the passport towards me. I flinch noticeably, and become worried that maybe this is some sort of terrorist profiling system - detain the passengers who flinch! Luckily, I’m quite mistaken, and later find out from Peter that the guy was merely humming along with some Korean tune. I hope he doesn’t try out for any of their reality TV shows. After we make it across the imaginary border into Korea, we’re greeted by an IPhO welcoming party at the booth set up by the organizers. There’s not really much they can do except give us directions on how to get to our connecting flight. We have a two hour layover in Seoul before our flight departs for Busan, so the five of us are set loose in an enormous foreign airport after spending the entire day sitting in an aircraft cabin. Oddly enough the first place we visit is the washroom. To our great amusement, we find posted near the entrance the digital photograph and license of the janitor who cleans facilities at the airport. In North America this would probably be a little degrading, but maybe there’s a certain sense of pride for Koreans to be working in the flagship airport of their country. Another interesting observation we make during our brief stay in Seoul is that Koreans love playing computer games, to the degrees that you can play Playstation 2 for free at the airport! There's probably more gaming consoles than payphones in Incheon. Of course I'm exaggerating just a little. As soon as we find out about this we stop exploring the airport and stay to play games until our next flight is about to leave and our leaders have become worried. To their great relief we manage to show up for our connecting flight to Busan on Asiana Airlines. The plane is an older model and the interior is in a rather ugly brown colour. As we board, the stewardesses greet Peter and I with "an-yong," mistaking us for Koreans. We reply likewise and cross our fingers that the conversation ends there. It does. The flight is a short one which means the plane doesn’t fly very high. As a result we’re exposed to some bad weather and the cabin shakes violently for most of the flight. After holding our breaths for 45 minutes, we land safely at Busan-Gimhae airport. We find out later that the poor team from Iceland took a six-hour bus ride to make the same trip. Busan, the IPhO team en route to their hotel Gimhae is a really backwater place. I say this because we actually had to get off the airplane using stairs! I’ve only flown between major transportation hubs in the past, so I’m used to entering the airport directly through a boarding gate. Apparently, according to our two Iranian teammates, that's how all the airports in Iran are. Disembarking is an adventure in itself. You see, this is the first time we actually experience the climate in Korea. Wandering about in an air-conditioned airport in Seoul doesn't count. As I emerge from the cabin and start down the stairs towards the tarmac, I’m nearly knocked over by an overpowering blast of hot air. You can imagine what it must have been like, since our bodies were still acclimated to the fifteen degree Vancouver weather, while it was easily thirty plus in Busan. We're quickly whisked inside by one of those neat low-riding airport buses, which made the inconvenience of using the stairs worthwhile. Inside, we find waiting for us, of all things, another IPhO booth set up by the organizers. This tale of three cities is nearly over, but there's one more tall tale to tell. The welcoming party in Busan leads us to a pair of waiting taxis. What we didn't know was that we would have to pay for these taxis ourselves, and that the trip would take an hour and a half. We're driving along in what is most likely a Hyundai, and of course, being foreigners, the taxi driver is nice enough to put on some foreign music for us. We restrain ourselves from laughing as we recognize that he’s playing an Elvis recording. I wish I remembered what song it was. Meanwhile the taxi driver appears to be very happy and is singing along with a terrible Korean accent. During our trip, we encounter another taxi parked in the middle of the street. It could have been broken down, so our driver pulls up next to it, rolls down his window and starts shooting out some rapid-fire phrases in Korean. The other taxi in our convoy stop as well and waits behind our lead car. Without explanation the conversation continues for at least five minutes, which leaves the passengers quite puzzled, but also quite helpless, since we don't know how to say, "Shut up and keep driving" in Korean. Maybe they were just talking about the results of the latest Starcraft tournament, we'll never know. We eventually get moving again. At last, our entourage arrives at our destination – the Gyeongju Hilton. The taxi ride cost a small fortune which the team leader unhappily pays. The entire hotel has been taken over by the IPhO, but we're too exhausted to care. I share a room with Peter and the two of us fall asleep without any more adventures.