Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all our friends and family back home!

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Closing ceremony thoughts

We watched the closing ceremony last night on TV. This is an anticlimactic moment in any Olympics, but was even more so after all the glamour and hype of Beijing. Having watched the Opening Ceremony in the US with English commentary, we had a harder time following the themes and cultural aspects of the Closing Ceremony. We liked the 8-minute piece by London's Olympic Committee, and thought it was an accurate representation of the city.

That's about it! We are going to use the next couple of days to relax and go around the city a bit. And then it's back to the good old US. We will post more detailed photo albums most likely after we return.

Volleyball Finals Recap

Our last Olympic event took place last night at the Capital Indoor stadium northwest of city center. OW and I saw the women's indoor volleyball final game between Brazil and USA. There was an equal number of Brazilian fans and US fans, but the Brazilian fans were by far more vocal and outrageously costumed. The Chinese had no qualms cheering for both teams. However, I did find it amusing that the Chinese would cheer most loudly for Lang Ping, the USA coach, who was one of China's best volleyball players in the 80's.

The first set was clearly dominated by Brazil whose attackers delivered incredible spikes, leaving the US team on the defensive. Brazil also blocked much more intuitively than US, succesfully reading the setter. Brazil took the first set 25-15.

In the second set, USA executed much better and also started putting up blocks of their own. They won easily, 25-18.

Set 3 went to Brazil. I noticed that the US team made many service errors - this is one of their weaknesses and is especially important given rally scoring. Brazil won 25-13.

Set 4 was the closest, with each team taking turns with the lead. However, towards the end, Brazil suddenly won 4 points in a row, winning the match in a matter of minutes (25-21). In my opinion, the US team relied too heavily on one person --Logan Tom. They set her for the last 3 points, and the Brazilians anticipated it each time, putting up a 3 person block, and winning the point off the block. If you look at the stats, the leading scorers in women's volleyball during the Olympics were Logan Tom (USA), Wang Yimei (China), and a Cuban player, you can see that each of these semifinal teams had one superstar attacker. Brazil, on the other hand, is much better at setting all of their players --which also makes them harder to block. I think the US team had it in them to take it to 5, but those last points closed the opportunity.

I found the coaching styles of the two teams to be completely opposite. Lang Ping sits back in her chair, says nothing, and frowns occasionally. The Brazilian coach paces the sidelines, gesturing wildly, and actively coaches his team. He looks like he may have a seizure at any moment. When his team won, he was intensely emotional and worked the crowd to a frenzy during their victory lap.

It was an exciting game and we were able to see the medal ceremony with China, US, and Brazil.

Then, today, we saw the men's indoor volleyball final match --also USA v Brazil. We saw the first game, where Brazil was leading by a large margin. They were putting up ridiculous blocks and looked to be in their element. We left for lunch, and caught the last two points of the match on the bus. Looks like USA came back and won sets 2, 3, and 4, vindicating the women's team.

New pictures are up!

Click the link on the right for new pictures! We are at Starbucks again, this time at an enormous mall on Wangfujing St., a few blocks away from Tiananmen square. We did find the Baleno store, but it is definitely not what we remember from two years ago. It got all high fashion on us! The supply of cheap clothes in Beijing is definitely dwindling!

Athletics finals

We visited the Bird's Nest stadium for the last time on Friday to see the athletics finals. The evening's program did not disappoint, and we saw one world record and one olympic record broken. By far the most exciting event was the men's 4x100 relay. We knew Jamaica would be strong, but after Usain Bolt received the baton from his teammate, it immediately became clear that the race for the gold was over and the race for the world record was beginning. By the time Bolt passed the baton over they were nearly a second ahead of the next team. Three golds and three world records for this amazing athlete.

We also saw the finals of the men's pole vault, which we realized is the slowest track and field event ever! It was going on the entire time the other events were on and then some. In the end the contest was between Steve Hooker of Australia and some Russian guy. The Australian was definitely the dark horse because he barely made it out of the qualifying rounds. But he clenched the gold medal by completing his jump of 5.90 after the Russian had failed to clear this height. The Australian boxers in our section went nuts and everyone was cheering loudly, but the show was not over. Hooker decided to try to break the Olympic record by clearing 5.96,
one cm over the record. He missed the first attempt and took a scratch on the second to give himself and extra 5 minutes to prepare. The atmosphere was electric and everyone was filled with anticipation. The third jump came and he cleared it! New Olympic record and we were there to witness it!

We also saw the final two rounds of the men's decathlon. American Bryan Clay came in leading by a good margin and maintained it to take the gold! In fact, he was so far ahead going into the 1500m run that he finished last and still took the gold. Congratulations Bryan!

The USA women long jumpers did not deliver any medals, and Brazil took the gold by 1cm over Russia with 7.04.

Jamaica gold medal men 4x100!

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At Starbucks

We slept in today (well, I slept in, OW went for a run in nearby Yuyuantan Park), and then went to a jiaozi (dumpling) place near Chang'An Jie. We are now at the Starbucks across the street, using the free wireless and drinking coffee and machiatto. 

Tonight we will be at the Bird's Nest for the last time this trip to see athletics. There should be a few exciting finals in there, including the men's and women's 4x100 relay, which should feature Usain Bolt of Jamaica. The US teams did not make the final in either of these events after BOTH teams dropped the baton in the semis.

We will also see the women's long jump final, for which we saw the heats on Tuesday. The olympic record in this event is still held by Jackie Joyner-Kersee from the 1988 Seoul olympics, so we are excited to see if this might be broken. We are looking forward to a great performance by Reese of the US, but it will be tough to beat Tatyana Lebedeva of Russia, who is the reigning Olympic and world champion. Finally, we will see the pole vault final, where the world champion Brad Walker of the US again got eliminated in the early rounds. What is it with the US team these days?

I can't believe we are nearing the end of the Olympics here. We have had a great time, and were lucky to have seen so many events. We will stay in Beijing for a few more days after the closing ceremony and are hoping that some of the Olympics paraphernalia will go on sale ;) 

We might go to Wangfujing St. again today to check out the elusive Baleno store and to potentially purchase a China team warmup.

Today's volleyball recap

The dreary weather and intermittent downpours didn't stop us from going to watch the final women's beach volleyball match of USA v China this morning. We weren't sure if they would postpone due to the weather, but good thing we arrived on time, as games go on in all weather except lightning. They handed us ponchos at the gate, which were helpful, but of such poor quality that they had holes everywhere by the time we left. In any case, we saw China's #2 team defeat Brazil 2-0 for the bronze medal. The enthusiasm of the crowd was tempered by the lousy weather, but the game was still exciting to watch. The game finished in 45 mins and there was an hour wait before the gold medal match. By the time that game started, it was a full house despite the rain. Great turnout by Americans too. Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh were spot-on. They are a great team and came into the match with a 107-game winning streak. They extended that to 108 today with their win over China's #1 team. The games were very close, but USA played extremely well and displayed their dominance in the sport. I was especially impressed with their sportsmanship upon winning, making sure to hug and thank their opponents, officials, etc. Walsh seemed especially emotional. This will probably be the last Olympics for both and they went out with a bang. I would also like to commend the Chinese beach volleyball program for developing Olympic champions in the span of 4 years. It was a great game to watch. OW and I cheered for our respective favorites and had a good time even though we came out pretty drenched.

On the bus ride back from Beach Volleyball, we saw the beginning of the women's USA v Cuba volleyball semifinal match. It looked like they had the upper hand, and indeed, once we got home, the final score (3-0 USA) confirmed.

Then, just a couple of hours ago, we watched on TV with bated breath, the China v Brazil semifinal women's indoor volleyball match. The first set was close, with the teams trading 1-point leads. Brazil's offense was highly effective, but China's defense rallied time after time. However, Brazil won the first set 27-25. In the second set, Brazil seemed like a stronger team,
with many more successful blocks and fierce attacks. Although China rallied towards the end of the set, they lost the third set point at 24-22 on a service error, which I think was irreversibly devastating to the team's morale. The third game was unfortunatley not close at all, with China
making many mistakes and not capitalizing on dig opportunities. Brazil opened a wide lead and maintained it to take the third and final set 25-12. I'm hugely disappointed to not see China in the finals but am looking forward to attending the gold medal match between USA and Brazil on Friday. It will also be interesting to see the outcome of the bronze medal China v Cuba rematch.

A lot of really good volleyball today, still more to come.

At handball

This is our first and only handball event of the Olympics. We are watching
the quarterfinals. Currently, France is playing Russia in a close and very
physical game. Handball is very popular in the European countries, and
France is supposedly a top seed. The French fans go absolutely wild
whenever there is a goal and are generally boisterous, with many chants and
cheers. They boo the officials frequently on calls against France, which
has been leading by a 3 point margin for most of the game.

We don't quite understand the sport but think it is a combination of
basketball, hockey, soccer, and lacrosse. There are two 30 minute periods

France just beat Russia 27-24. Next up, Poland v Iceland.

And now for some volleyball news

In Women's Beach volleyball, the final game will be played between USA's #1
team and China's #1 team. We have tickets to this game tomorrow morning and
are absolutely psyched to see the US/China rivalry play out. OW bought
another huge US flag before our baseball game the other day (the other one
was given to the US men's eight during the rowing medal ceremony - see his
earlier post for details) and I have my China shirt, flag, and visor. We
plan on yelling at each other and waving flags in each others faces like
good rivals should :) In the semis, the USA #1 team easily beat Brazil to
advance. The other semi pitted China's #1 team against China's #2 team in a
grueling 1 hour, 15 minute, 3 set match. The #1 team won. At some point,
China also beat the USA #2 team to get to the semis.

In women's indoor volleyball, the quarterfinals were played yesterday. Cuba
beat Serbia, Brazil beat Japan, China beat Russia, and USA beat Italy to
advance to the semis. Cuba, Brazil, and Russia won 3-0 in each of their
games. US went to 5 sets, trading sets with Italy through the game. We
watched the game on TV and US looked very scrappy, adapting to the Italians
to comeback for a decisive win in the 5th.
In the semis, China will play Brazil, who are so far undefeated in these
games. USA will play Cuba. Thus far, Brazil looks quite strong, though they
were not in the US/China pool, so it's hard to compare. US and China are
fairly evenly matched, although US took an unexpected win against China in
preliminary play. We have tickets to the gold medal match and are crossing
our fingers for a US/China matchup!

I have not been following Men's volleyball, but I hear that the indoor team
is undefeated so far.

Finally... Pictures!

Well we finally got to an internet-enabled Starbucks and have started to post some pictures here. We will be uploading more and labeling these in the coming days, so stay tuned!

Track and field qualifiers

We thought our athletics ticket today included some finals, but it
turned out it was only the qualifying rounds of several events. We saw
the women's 200m heats and long jump and javelin throw qualifiers.

This was our first time inside the new national stadium (bird's nest).
We dealt with the usual confusion at the entry gates and climbed all
the way up to section H305. Our view of the field was pretty decent
regardless of the height.

We had never been to any track and field events before, so we didn't
realize that it can be kind of disorienting. All the events happen at
the same time with the announcer switching back and forth. So it's
really hard to actually keep track.

The javelin throw was dominated by Europeans, with the exception of
China's Zhang Li whose throw of 61.77 put her in 9th place but in
qualifying position. The US and Jamaica were the top runners in the
200. The long jump had a good mix of people, with US and Greek
athletes taking the top qualifying spots.

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Rowing!

Okay I'm kind of late with this, but here is an update on the rowing races!
First things first, on Saturday we saw Michelle Guerette of the USA win
silver in an amazing come-from-behind performance. At the 500 meter mark,
she was in 5th place, 4th at the 1000, 3rd at the 1500, and finally
sprinted for the silver. What an outstanding performance from Michelle!

China also took silver in the women's pair, which was also an impressive
result considering they were way down at the 1000. In fact, it seems the
Chinese are amazing sprinters because they came back from 4th place the
next day to take GOLD in the women's quad. This was China's first ever
Olympic gold in rowing, so it was amazing to be there to see this piece of
rowing history. The pictures of the Chinese athletes tearing up at the
medals dock have been all over the TV coverage here, and we were there to
see it happen live!

As expected, the only US team boats that delivered medals were the eights.
The women were basically in command the entire race. They were challenged
by the Netherlands and Canada, but maintained their lead to take the GOLD!
Go USA!

The men faced a far tougher race. They were last at the 500 but pulled off
a huge move in the second 1000 and moved into third behind Canada and the
UK. They held onto this lead and clenched the bronze. Well, it's hard to
top what the Athens eight did four years ago, but a bronze Olympic medal is
still certainly something to write home about. Speaking of Athens gold, I
chatted for a bit with Pete Cipollone, legendary coxswain and Olympic gold
medalist. He signed my ticket with "go for the gold". I wish...

After the men's eight medals ceremony, the athletes started posing for
pictures. We were just standing around, celebrating and waving our huge US
flag around. Guess what happened next? All of the sudden a coach-looking
guy ran over to us and asked to take our flag for the boat! They then posed
for pictures with it for about 15 minutes. So, if anybody sees any pics of
the US eight posing on the dock with a flag, that's OUR FLAG! So awesome...

Done with baseball

USA won pretty handedly 9-1. There was a brief period of excitement in
the top of the 9th when China hit a homerun, but it was short-lived as
that would be their only run of the game. Half the crowd had already
left by then.

Sadly, this will be the last time Baseball and Softball are played in
the Olympics. They will be replaced in 2012 in London by two new
sports. I think the rationale was that Olympics Baseball is not
representative of the world's best athletes because all the MLB pros
are still playing out their seasons in the All-Star playoffs or
whatnot.

And since there is no professional league in China, the Chinese
national baseball team will be disbanded after these Olympic Games.
Sad :(

Tomorrow morning, we will step inside the Bird's Nest for the first
time for Athletics (Track and field). We'll see a few finals events
and post about those tomorrow.

For those of you following the gold medal aspirations of China's 110m
hurdle star, Liu Xiang, you will disappointed to know that he withdrew
with an Achilles tendon and hamstring injury seconds before the final
race. Apparently the hamstring injury from May was supposed to be
healed, but the Achilles has been a chronically recurring problem.
When Liu Xiang took his place on the blocks, he was grimacing in pain.
There was a false start and he limped back to the blocks. He withdrew
minutes later - to the disappointment of probably every Chinese fan in
the stadium. This event was THE hottest ticket as the expectations of
an entire nation were on him to repeat his Athens gold. At the press
conference later in the day, his coach cried as he explained how
difficult a situation it was. :(

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At baseball CHN v USA

We're at the baseball fields watching USA v China As soon as we got
out of the subway, we were accosted by scalpers looking to buy and
sell tickets, not sure what the going price is.

We're currently in the bottom of the 7th, they just threw out the
Chinese pitcher for beaning the US batter in the head. The score is
already 5-0 US. There's been some drama, with many arguable calls all
against China. A US player bowled over the CHN catcher in a play at
home plate. That got a lot of boos from the home crowd because you are
actually not allowed to do that in the Olympics (though it's fine in
MLB). When the Chinese manager went to argue with the umpire, he got
ejected. More boos. Also a questionable tagout in the 5th was called
in USA's favor. The beginning of the game, when it was close, was more
exciting. Many people have left already.

The venue itself is nicely set up but the lines for food and toilets are long.

US just scored another 2 runs - now 7-0.

China's pitcher just dropped the ball, score is now 8-0.

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Women 8 gold, men 8 bronze

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A recap of the past 36 hours

We saw the CHN v JPN quarterfinal women's football match in Qinhuangdao. It
was a huge hassle trying to arrange a train back to Beijing - a sign that
despite the modern trains, the booking system is still a bit archaic. You
can't buy round trip tickets - you can only buy tickets in the originating
city. So we could only buy our return tickets upon arriving at Qinhuangdao.
The tickets we wanted were sold out by the time we arrived, except for
standing room only tix for a 4 hour ride back at 1AM. So we ended up having
to find a hotel after booking the next train available with seats, an 11:15
train.

We missed the first goal of the game because we were booking the hotel and
train. Japan scored a goal 15 mins in. There's a long time rivalry between
JPN and CHN and the stadium was packed. Security presence was very visible
and had to breakup some altercations between JPN and CHN spectators. The
Japanese team had possession of the ball more often and seemed to be on the
offensive a lot more than China. They had better ball control and seemed
less fatigued, with more speed throughout the game. There were some close
shots on goal by China, and the crowd was crazy. However, Japan scored
another goal late in the second half which ended China's quest for a medal.

Our hotel was actually very nice, and we had a good night's rest. The hotel
breakfast was pretty lavish in comparison to what we normally eat. The
train ride back was uneventful and we got back to Beijing at 1:15. From
there, it was on to the first day of rowing finals in Shunyi.

Getting to Shunyi was also a hassle and expensive. We took the subway from
the train station, and the the airport express subway out to the airport.
From there we took a taxi to the rowing park. It took us almost 2 hours to
get there, but we made it on time to watch the first medal race. OW will
give more commentary on the actual races later.

At this moment, we are in a taxi on our way to the rowing park again for
Day 2 of the Rowing finals. We negotiated a fixed price with a taxi driver
directly from Beijing, so it's a much faster and direct ride.

A bit of drizzle today, but hopefully no rain delay.

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!

On the train to Qinhuangdao

We are currently zipping along on a train headed for Qinhuangdao. We have a
women's football (soccer) match tonight there - CHN v JPN, that should be
very exciting. China's women's team has historically been strong, but I
don't think they've won any olympic medals.

This morning, we went to a weightlifting event, the Men's 85kg. It was a
final round, however the finals are split into round A and B. We saw B, and
the A round will take place tonight to determine the winner.

Weightlifting is actually tough to understand. There are two types: Snatch
and Clean & Jerk. In the Snatch, the barbell is lifted from the floor and
above the head in one motion. In the Clean and Jerk, the barbell is lifted
first from the floor to the lifter's chest, resting right below the
collarbone. Then, the barbell is raised from the chest to overhead. The
Clean and Jerk will allow for more weight to be lifted as there is a rest
in between.

Each lifter gets 3 attemps at each type of lift. I'm not quite sure how it
works, but it seems like the sum of their highest weights from each
category is what determines their final rank. Once the barbell has bee
lifted overhead, his/her feet must be in line and 3 judges need to signal
their approval before he/she is credited for the lift.

This morning, we saw USA's Kendrick Farris dominate the competition. OW
unfurled his USA flag and joined his compatriots in chanting "U.S.A!
U.S.A!" Farris was ranked 1 in group B - hopefully he'll retain that rank
after Round A competes tonight.

One other thing to note is that we took public transport back from
Weightlifting to our apartment and from the apartment to the train station.
We've mostly been taking taxis due to a jam-packed schedule. Our
experience today is that the subway
system is modern, but still inconvenient. We had to transfer 3 times to get
home and each transfer involves 10 mins of walking. It took us over an hour
to get home.

Okay, I have blackberry thumb now. Will get some dinner and try to nap some
before we get to Qinhuangdao.

At internet cafe

OW and I went for a meal after volleyball (Germany won 3-0) and then found an internet cafe. He's typing away next to me as I speak, so we may overlap in content a bit. Unfortunately for us, this internet cafe doesn't allow us to use their USB port to upload photos. Sucks. The "cafe" is in the basement of a nondescript building. I'm pretty sure they don't serve coffee here, but there's an interesting mix of clientele. The room is dimly lit and set up like a game room, with about 15 rows of tables, with 15 computers per row. Most of the Chinese people are young gamers. There is a small handful of foreigners checking email, and one really obnoxious foreigner saying "You can go anytime" every 5 minutes to his online gaming opponent. There is also a Chinese woman with a very loud baby/child. The woman at the front desk was the most unfriendly person we've met so far, refusing to answer any of our questions, even though we asked in Chinese.

Tonight, we plan on going to Li Qun for some peking duck with OW's friend. We found this place in the Lonely Planet when we went to Beijing a couple years ago. It's situated in the hutong, and pretty authentic. It's gotten a lot of traction from foreigners since being highlighted in the Lonely Planet, so hopefully it's still relatively inexpensive.

No pictures :(

Well folks, we found an Internet cafe, but they don't allow people to plug in USB peripherals, so no pictures yet :(. We have been running a lot around so it's nice to have a free afternoon to relax and eat Peking Duck :).

We are really excited about tomorrow. The first event of the day is weightlifting (not handball as I have said in a previous post), which has been in the news here a lot, because China has been dominating. In the evening we are off to Qinhuangdao, where we will see China vs Japan in the women's football 1/4 finals. That should be an awesome game. Quack picked up a Chinese flag today so we will be all set for our "Zhongguo dui... jia you!"

Fortunately, we have been able to bring in our camera without any problems, but it turns out that my American flag is on the large side, and a guard stared at it for a couple of minutes today before allowing me to bring it in. I'm not sure why I keep bringing it around when the US isn't even playing :).

It rained today for the first time during our visit, which I think is pretty lucky given that the clouds have been hazy ever since we have arrived (well, part of that can be attributed to smog, of course). But we managed to duck into a Japanese noodle shop and mostly avoid the rain.

Well, hopefully we will get some pics up soon!

Pics with the Italians!

Hi, Quack here! I was able to get pictures with some of the Italian
players. They also autographed my ticket. So cool! We will try to find
an internet cafe after the GER v EGY game. Apparently, the whole
wireless thing didn't happen.

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More volleyball

We are at the next men's volleyball event. Italy vs Venezuela was an
interesting game but Italy won fairly easily. This is also the same
group as China and the US, who will play each other later today - too
bad we don't have tickets to that! The US seems to be dominating this
group and probably has a good shot at medals. Up next is Germany v
Egypt.

It's interesting how the fans have picked up local expressions, like
Yidali... jia you (literally "Italy add oil"), meaning "go Italy!" And
the Chinese fans basically cheer for everybody if China isn't playing,
so the atmosphere is very festive! Well, that's about it folks,
tomorrow is handball and tonight is Peking duck :).

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Upset at archery

#60 Romania upset #5 Malaysia by 1 point. Extremely exciting.

In other news, Korea beat Taiwan by 1 point to advance.

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At archery

At the Men's individual 1/32 and 1/16 archery elimination matches. We
knew nothing aside from the fact that there is a bulls-eye when we got
here. The seating was general admission and we didn't even know where
was the best place to sit. So we're on the sides. There is a huge
Korean fan contingent here. Apparently the Koreans are huge in
archery, already capturing both the women's and men's team gold.

We just saw Korea (4th seed) and Taiwan (29th seed) win their head to
heads against Brazil and Phillipines respectively. They now go head to
head in a 1/16 elimination.

For those (like us!) who don't know the game, each person shoots 12
arrows. Bullseye is worth 10, with each ring around the bullseye worth
9, 8, 7, etc. So max points is 120. The archers take turns and it's
always a head to head match. Very interesting, and a relatively quick
game, about 20 mins a match. Right now, Korea is ahead 82 to 81 after
9 shots. Very close game.

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Archery next

We saw the Great Wall today and are now headed to watch archery.
Volleyball yesterday China vs Venezuela was AMAZING! Will send a more
detaled report soon!

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Just finished diving

Hi, Quack again! Well, that was fast, China just won gold in the
Women's synchro 10m platform diving event. They led from the start.
Australia and Mexico came in 2nd and 3rd and US came in last. I
thought N Korea would be more of a contender, but they faded after the
first couple of rounds. We're waiting for the medal ceremony now. This
was a great first event. The water cube is pretty amazing. I've been
impressed with the number of foreigners here who speak Chinese. I've
been underwhelmed by the Olympics attendance though. The seats here
were about 90% full. It was really odd to hear country music in
between dives. I'm talking Cotton Eyed Joe and Tim McGraw.

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Watching diving at the water cube

This is Quack! We are at the end of round 4 of 5, and China has a
sizable lead. Although we have Category C tickets, we are very much a
part of the action as there are a bunch of rowdy Mexicans nearby
yelling their heads off. OW has been waving his US flag, but no one
has joined him. The entire stadium goes wild when the Chinese team
takes the platform.

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In China

We have arrived in the new airport terminal in Beijing! Will post pics later.

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At airport

And away we go! We are moments away from leaving LGA and beginning our journey to the Olympics. We didn't sleep at all last night in the hopes of shifting our time zones more efficiently. We have a 4 hour layover, which is somewhat annoying, but then it's straight to PEK. 

The Opening Ceremony was pretty amazing -- the rollout of the scroll was ingenious and the sheer manpower overwhelming. I think the electricity of the Opening Ceremony is carrying over to the events. Michael Phelps already captured his first gold in an impressive, world-record shattering 400 medley, setting the pace for the rest of Swimming. The Gymnastics qualifiers are competitive and with the new scoring system in place, who knows what will happen. We happened to catch some Women's Weightlifting (48kg) on nbcolympics.com, and gained newfound respect for these athletes. It's all happening so fast, all across Beijing, and we hope to cover as many events/sights/sounds as possible. Stay tuned! 

No Live Opening Ceremony on NBC

NBC is not showing the opening ceremony live. It is truly hard to believe that 1 billion people all over the world are watching the opening ceremony live, and the US is not part of this, no thanks to NBC. Okay, I know they just want to make the most money by keeping people in suspense until prime-time, but come on! Fortunately there are a few sites that are streaming video from European channels, like this one.

Team USA 0, Norway 2

Well folks, the Olympics did not open too smoothly for Team USA as the women's football (soccer) team lost to Norway 0-2. A gold medal will certainly be tough now, but we will see. We have tickets for women's football, so we hope to see Team USA in action (and doing better)!

In the meantime, we're packing and preparing for the trip, and trying to make sense of conflicting reports on photography at the Games (ranging from "you'll get your camera taken away at the airport" to "you'll be totally fine with any camera").

Beijing Transportation

I came across this page on the official Olympics website. The first piece of information is that Olympic ticket holders will be able to ride city subways and buses for free on the day of the event listed on the ticket; however, we already knew this by reading the backs of our tickets (which are very cool-looking by the way, you can see some pictures here) and the People's Daily. However, what we didn't realize is that ten new "K" lines are being opened to get spectators to and from the events. Finally, this web page gives us some peace of mind regarding transportation to/from the Shunyi rowing course. Bus number K20 will run from the Olympic Green South Bus Depot directly to Shunyi. Rowing finals, here we come!

SLR Cameras Banned at Beijing Olympics

According to this blog, it seems that non-accredited Olympics spectators will not be allowed to use SLR cameras in the stands. This is extremely disappointing because we were planning to shoot the Olympics with our Canon Rebel XTi. The does seem to be a bit of disagreement from other discussion boards on what the official policy is, for instance this post claims that SLR cameras with up to 300mm telephoto lenses will be allowed. That would be great news for us since we were planning to use a Canon 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS, but I guess we will just have to see for ourselves to know for sure. If anyone has a first-hand account of the situation after the start of the Games, please leave a comment here!

Reuters Beijing Smog Watch

Reuters has a "smog watch" video illustrating the most recent air quality in Beijing. Check it out here.

Rain Prevention

China plans to use weather modification technology to try to ensure that it doesn't rain during the opening ceremonies. First off, this is incredible - people, they're changing the weather. I wonder what the details of the technology are and what exactly it's capable of. Wikipedia has an article here. This is definitely going to make me complain more about the weather... Bad skiing season? There shouldn't be such a thing anymore. You guys say you're making snow? You better make it start coming from the sky now that this technology is available!

US Lightweight 8 Takes Gold at Worlds

In Olympic years, the top competition for non-Olympic rowing events is the World Championships. The US Lightweight eight took gold at this year's worlds, beating out Germany (silver) and last year's champion, the Netherlands (bronze). This is a fantastic result for Team USA, and is especially exciting for me because the rowers of the USA Olympic four will come from this boat.

The Olympic lightweight rowing scene is interesting in that there are only three lightweight rowing events, the women's double and the men's double and four with coxswain. So with spots for only six lightweight rowers (and one cox), the competition for these positions is fierce, to say the least. Team USA might be taking a risk by recycling athletes from the worlds crew, but we will hope that it is worth it given these rowers' talent. Plus, fours racing is a totally different animal as it is substantially slower than eights. In short, nothing can be taken for granted, so we are looking forward to the rowing finals with much anticipation!

Online Retailers Selling Bogus Olympics Tickets

Ooops, I wrote this a few days ago and forgot to post this. Well, better late than never!

The NY Times had an article about two web sites selling bogus Olympic tickets. Apparently the retailers would charge the customers' credit cards but never ship any tickets. There seems to be a lot of sketchy black market activity related to the Olympics going on. Buyers beware!

Phase IV Ticket Sale Crowds

Well, folks, looks like we were a bit naive when we started thinking about trying to get tickets at the Phase IV sale. It looks like crowds of several tens of thousands have collected to have a chance to buy the tickets, so even we were able to force one of our friends or relatives to wait in line, we would feel slightly bad :).

We have tickets to the women's volleyball finals!

Courtesy of eBay, we were able to get our hands on those women's volleyball finals tickets that I've been coveting. So pumped! I'm crossing my fingers and hoping they're legit...but we've already facebook-stalked the seller, so I think we're good. Ahhhh internet, I could hug you right now.

BBC Sport Olympic Venue Map

Let's be honest, the official Olympic venue map is not too helpful. BBC has come up with a better one that uses Google maps. But still, some things are unclear, like how is each venue accessible? My biggest concern is the Shunyi rowing venue, which seems to be around halfway between Beijing Capital airport and San Francisco. Okay, so I tend to exaggerate, and there is a new train going from Beijing city center to the airport. But seriously, if anybody knows the best way of getting to Shunyi, please post it here!

What's Wrong With This Picture?

We have previously mentioned that occupancy rates at international hotels in Beijing have been much lower than expected. Well, in case you don't always believe what you read in the papers, here is some first-hand evidence of that. This is a partial seating map for our flight to Beijing. Anything look bizarre for a direct flight right around the start of the Games? You got it -- a lot of empty seats!

On the other hand, maybe I shouldn't be complaining. This way we can expect to arrive in Beijing, take a lovely stroll down Wangfujing, take a deep breath of clean air, and take a lovely uncrowded train to the Olympic stadium. Sounds like a dream... one dream, that is!

NY Times Article - Chinese Rowing Team

This article came out at the beginning of the summer. It highlights the rigorous training schedule the elite Chinese rowers have been enduring recently. Can China be a dominant Olympic rowing force this summer? We shall see...

Free wireless! (hopefully)

My dad told me the other day that there would be free wireless internet service in Beijing in time for the Olympics. CECT-Chinacomm Communications is implementing the buildout, with the first phase to cover an area of 100 sq. kilometers already completed. I'm not sure what 100 sq. km covers, but my dad says there should be coverage up until about the 3rd ring. This is good news for us since our apartment is between the 2nd and 3rd Ring. For those of you unfamiliar with the rings, let me direct you to a city map:

As you can see, Beijing is centered around the Imperial Palace, located directly across from Tiananmen Square. The Second Ring Road, Third Ring Road, and Fourth Ring Road form concentric circles around the city center. Our apartment is near Yuyuantan Park, west of city center. The location is actually not ideal for the Olympics since most venues are located north/northeast of city center. The other day, we realized we would have to take 5 subway lines (yes, that's right, 5!) to get to the Olympic Stadium. But that's cool, we'll just get really adept at navigating the public transportation system. Or take a lot of cabs.

Beijing Olympic Architecture

The New York Times had a nice article the other day about the new buildings and facilities that are going up around Beijing in preparation for the Olympics. Check it out, and make sure you click on the interactive features.

Most anticipated events

I've been waiting for these Games ever since 2001, when Beijing won the bid. I was actually in China when it happened, and I remember the excitement. The sport I most want to see is Volleyball since I used to play on my high school team and continued to play on an intramural team in college. We have 2 Indoor Volleyball events lined up --too bad they're both Men's. I find it hard to identify with Men's volleyball --the rallies last forever and the kills are so spectacularly powerful, it seems like there's no point even trying to dig it. Women's volleyball, on the other hand, involves a bit more finesse, strategy, and teamwork. Also, China won the Gold in Women's volleyball in Athens, so I'm sure they'll be a strong contender this year as well. I've been scouring eBay and StubHub for Women's Indoor volleyball Finals tix to no avail. So if you know someone, who works with someone, who went to school with someone, who has a pair of tickets, LET ME KNOW!

OW's sport is Rowing. He used to row in college and then sculled post-college. He was pretty good too! We were very easily able to secure tickets to the Rowing finals on 8/16 and 8/17 though these tickets are now quite hard to find. Unfortunately, none of his old rowing buddies made it to the team, but we are meeting up with one of his teammates from college who will also be on the Olympic scene.

Phase IV Tickets Made Available

It was just announced that there will be another round of ticket sales in which 800,000 tickets will be distributed at locations in Olympic cities. This is very exciting, but we're not getting there until the start of the Olympics. Is there anybody "on the ground" in Beijing that wants to do us a big favor :)?

Beijing hotel rates down 30%

I read an article on CNN today about how many 2-4 star hotels in Beijing are cutting their rates by as much as 30% due to unexpectedly low tourist demand. Apparently, the scarcity of event tickets, high cost of airfare, and visa restrictions are deterring many would-be visitors. Luckily, we already have plans to stay with my family in Beijing though we also ran into difficulty securing visas for the trip.

First Post!

22 days until our first Olympic event. We're pretty excited! In the meantime we're reading up on the NYTimes Olympic coverage and practicing our Chinese :)

Let's Get this Blog Started

Not much to write yet, but here's the plan. We will be at the Beijing Olympics and plan to post our impressions and pictures here. Some events we will see are:

Rowing
Indoor and Beach Volleyball
Football
Diving
Athletics
Handball
Boxing
Weightlifting
Archery
Softball
Baseball

We're not going to catch the opening or closing ceremonies. Too hectic! We'll watch them on TV.

Stay tuned!