The US pulled off the Bronze, a significant acheivement given they
lost both Hamm brothers. They had Silver going into the 6th rotation
but had difficulty on the pommel (sp) horse. They were VERY excited to get the Bronze.
Monday, August 11, 2008
China wins Men's gymnastics
Some info about Gerek Meinhardt, the fencer in Greg's posts
Gerek Meinhardt is the youngest USA male athlete competing in Beijing, youngest Olympic fencer ever, youngest Men's Foil competitor by over 4 years. He competes on August 13th, Men's Foil individual.
Some great posts from Kristin's friend Greg Massialas
We've linked to some fascinating blog entries from Greg Massialas, a Fencing Olympian. They provide an incredible coach and athlete perspective.
Click here to the visit the posts.
Click here to the visit the posts.
Lines, what lines?
We've become quite aggressive when it comes to standing in line. It's
clear in the Chinese (or just Beijing?) culture that cutting in line
is an art form or sport. During our first fewbdays we watched in
astonishment as person after person, no matter age, simply cuts in
line whenever possible. If challenged though, they retreat. So, we
have a new pastime as we queue in line (especially me, David) - do
whatever necessary to prevent anyone from taking your place in line.
It makes for good amusement as we wait for entry to events, food
lines, or the all time favorite, boarding the metro. The aggressive
side in me is coming out in spades! I kinda enjoy it.
clear in the Chinese (or just Beijing?) culture that cutting in line
is an art form or sport. During our first fewbdays we watched in
astonishment as person after person, no matter age, simply cuts in
line whenever possible. If challenged though, they retreat. So, we
have a new pastime as we queue in line (especially me, David) - do
whatever necessary to prevent anyone from taking your place in line.
It makes for good amusement as we wait for entry to events, food
lines, or the all time favorite, boarding the metro. The aggressive
side in me is coming out in spades! I kinda enjoy it.
About ready to watch Field Hockey, quite a crowd here to watch it.
We're excited to learn about the sport.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Men's freestyle relay
gold. Bush and Romney are here.
The Peking Duck report
The Peking Duck was absolutely incredible, nothing we've had in the
States comes close. The restaurant was quite fancy with a bar
downstairs next to the brick ovens. Upstairs (about 20K sq feet
literally) there are a series of hallways that lead to large dining
areas with grand tables. In addition to the duck we had tuna wrapped
in avocado, a grilled eggplant tower, and soy beans in a delicious
sauce.
States comes close. The restaurant was quite fancy with a bar
downstairs next to the brick ovens. Upstairs (about 20K sq feet
literally) there are a series of hallways that lead to large dining
areas with grand tables. In addition to the duck we had tuna wrapped
in avocado, a grilled eggplant tower, and soy beans in a delicious
sauce.
They carve the duck at your table and the presentation is so pristine
(see photos in link below). While a table next to us ordered a half
duck (we didn't quick realize you could do this) for three people we
did polish off the entire meal on our own.
The entire meal was $72, including wine and a fancy ice tea raspberry.
We have some photos on our camera but haven't had time to download
yet. In the meantime, the Flickr community has some great shots that
are worth looking at - all very similar to what we experienced.
http://flickr.com/search/?q=beijing+dadong+roast+duck+restaurant&page=2
Beijing DaDong Roast Duck Restaurant
eat Peking Duck. Will report after indulging.
Volunteers
We haven't had a chance to write about the volunteers throughout
Beijing for the Games. We'll use our intermission at the basketball
games to give you some observations.
Beijing for the Games. We'll use our intermission at the basketball
games to give you some observations.
There are literally thousands of volunteers at every venue and around
the streets of Beijing. We've heard the number 100,000 and it feels
entirely possible. The volunteers are extremely pleasant and very much
try to help. Even when they can't help due to language or lack of
training (there have been some examples where they clearly don't "get"
what to do from a customer service standpoint) they literally will
follow you to reiterate their thanks and/or apologies.
There are definelty those moments where you are waiting a security
line and look over and see groups of 10 volunteers in other lines that
are not accepting guests... and want to have a "here's a suggestion
for improving customer experience" conversation.
We also get the sense that,given the sheer population of the city and
perhaps the desire to employee as many as possible by the government,
the rule of thumb is to over staff in all situations. Examples:
volunteers for the Games, staff in the hotels, 3 staff members walking
around the hotel pool while you swim, personnel in the metro, and on
and on.
USA House
right now) we visted the USA House, a hospitality setup provided by
the USOC - a huge thank you to Anne Cribbs for setting us up with
passes.
The House is a great set up next to the football (soccer) stadium,
with great food, screens all over and free wifi. We have to admit it
was fantastic to eat salad and chicken pot pie. We now stuff ourselves
before any event given the food at all the venues - we owe you all a
picture of the universal menu as it's hilarious.
We just finished one bball game - Greece vs Spain. The fan support for
both teams was incredible. Imagine Greeks and Spainards trying to out
shout each other, loved it. Somehow a group of Greeks were able to
smuggle in a huge drum (two of us can't even get suntain lotion in)
which they pounded throughout the game shouting. At one point they
managed to get the whole arena shouted along. Oh, we have no idea what
we were shouting.
For the basketball fans, Kobe showed up for a while to watch hi
teammate, Pau Gasol lead his team to victory over Greece. We also
learned Pau has a brother Marc who also plays for Spain.
Next up is Argentina (Manu Ginobli of the Spurs) vs Lithuania.
We don't have tickets to the night games including China vs USA. If we
don't score any outside and/or get arrested trying we will head back
to USA House to watch the game.
Saturday, August 09, 2008
The shear size of Beijing
We are continually fascinated by the massive size of the city. Assuming Wikipedia is correct, Beijing is 6,487 square miles and NYC (all 5 boroughs) is 468 sq miles. It's incredible how much area theMetro covers - as we blogged about yesterday transit between venues can take hours and require walking, bus, and metro. Language issues aside, you can generally get from venue to venue as long as you leave plenty of time to navigate (for example, it's sometimes a complete mystery where an Olympic bus stop is actually located outside a metro).
Catching up on photo albums
Forbidden City (visited the afternoon before Opening Ceremonies)
This was during our visit to the Forbidden City. As we blogged about before we never made it into the City as they quite abruptly closed the City and escorted thousands away with guards and bullhorns. It was quite surreal as it was wall to wall people and happened to be across the street from Tian'anmen Square.
Wangfunjing Eats Market
An incredible outdoor food market with hundreds of food and gift stalls. Hungry for any insects?
Hopefully these will give you a bit of perspective from inside the stadium
Note: Check back if some of these albums don't have all the photos - intermittent net access at the moment.
Venue do's, don'ts and overall impressions
It's amazing to be here but we just have to share some areas forimprovement.
It's 7 pm and we are at badminton where the stadium is a great design. Three matches go on at the same time, amazing to keep track of it all at once.
Venues can be very far apart. We came from basketball using the subway and then a bus - about an hour and a half total transit time.
Food is the same at all venues; photo to come. But David just got a package of bread for dinner. The vendor said all the concessions were out of all the other choices. We highly reccomend you eat before you attend. You can not bring in any food or drink - not even my gum :)
This brings us to security. Thank goodness at basketball they offered lockers for our food and items like hand cleaner, lipstick, sun block etc. Lesson, don't bring a anything like that.
So hope this helps others who are on their way here for the second week. We will now be ready for tommorow, for an even smoother day. Now if the could just make the humidity less :)
On to Badminton
Hard to tell from the picture but there are multiple matches at the
same time, with the announcers talking over each other.
We have a US athlete in the next match - goin' for gold!
Our first event and a few lessons of life in Beijing.
37 to 24. Tonight we have Badminton which should be incredible.
The trip to the basketball game was about two hours, all within the
city limits of Beijing. After taking the Metro (impecibly clean, air
conditioned, and probably the best way to travel) to get the tickets
at another hotel* we tried a taxi to the basketball venue as our time
was short. Lesson learned, usually best to use metro IF there is a
decent route. On the west side of Beijing the metro does not connect
north to south so we experimenting with bus vs taxi. The overall
lesson: the city is huge with traffic that rivals (exceeds) LA and
Manhattan and requires plenty of lead times.
Food: biggest challenge is the food in venues, it's, well, horrible.
Literally the choices are a muffin, weird small hot dog, and bread.
And popcorn. We're learning that all the venues might have the same
options. No food allowed in.
Security: really interesting to experience how varied the security is.
Frankly, at opening ceremonies we brought in food and water without
hassle. Then, today at the basketball venue we had to check everything
(lotion, gum, food, empty Camelbak, medicines). The Camelbak is
unexplainable to every checkin volunteer. We had to go through
security three times, finally I just started telling which things were
prohibitted. Unfortunately there was no pre-warning about lotion,
mede, etc. One theory we have is that security will be tightest here
at baskbetball venue due to NBA players.
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