China lost :(

We are in Qinhuangdao, where the Chinese football team just played a disappointing game against Japan and lost 2-0. The atmosphere in the stadium when we came in was electric, Chinese fans chanting and waving flags in a near-frenzy. We arrived a little late (more about that later) and Japan already was a goal up on China. It was immediately clear that the Japanese team was playing much better, with the Chinese team mostly on the defensive. However, we were still hoping for an equalizer. But, while China had a few opportunities, Japan continued to dominate. Finally, in the 80th minute, Japan scored a second goal, and the game was pretty much over. The Chinese fans express their dissatisfaction with the home team's performance by poping their noisemaker balloons to make a thunderous noise that reverberated around the entire stadium.

All in all, coming out to Qinhuangdao has been a big hassle. You can't really buy round-trip tickets in China, so we had to look for a ticket back to Beijing upon our arrival here. The only option after the game was a train that leaves at 1am and gets in at 5:30am, and the tickets would be standing room! We passed that one up and grabbed tickets to an express train in the morning along with a hotel room in town. This is a resort town on the ocean, so rooms were not cheap - we got one for around $100 US. All in all, this has definitely been an experience, but not one we would rather repeat.

The hotel we are staying in is actually extremely nice, however. We even have a desktop computer in our room with an Internet connection. But.......... I did not bring the hard drive with our pictures on it or a cable to connect up the camera. So, no pics yet. Sorry! Will definitely try to post them soon!