Last Supper

I went out to dinner for my last night in China with Johannes, a friend from Denmark who is working in Beijing for the time being. I suggested we hit up The Little Mermaid, a Danish restaurant hidden down a dark and scary alley in the Sanlitun district. How ironic is it that for my last dinner in China I had Danish food? Just one of those things I thought I would pass along.

Potent Potables

Spurred on by a comment from loyal blog reader Brian Durban, I decided to take the plunge on what you see above. For the last two months I have been intrigued by whatever was in the little brown pottery. They are sold virtually everywhere and you are sure to find a Chinese person sipping one on any given street. I always wanted to purchase one, but could never pull the trigger. Brian told me the story of his friend who raved about them when she spent time here so I felt that I couldn't have a complete trip without going for it.

Whatever sort of concoction that was actually in there tasted good. It was a yogurty texture, but a little bit more bitter than your typical yogurt. It's sealed by the paper over the top and when you're ready to drink you punch a hole with the straw. I could see where it would make for a refreshing drink on a hot day and for 60 cents a pop, why not!

I remembered this picture from a while back. It's a stand selling these drinks on a street next to the Forbidden City.

The Glare is Too Bright

For those of you that don't know, I studied in Arhus, Denmark last semester, January-June, and had an amazing time. I really fell in love with Denmark. Two nights ago I went to Club Bud with a bunch of fellow Mizzou students. Club Bud is a semi-exclusive have-to-be-on-a-list-to-get-in kind of place run by Budweiser. Somebody knew somebody so we were able to get in. The place is packed with Olympians and media types, plus friends and family. Another important note: free beer. Half way through the night I noticed a few guys in sweaters with the Danish flag and Olympic rings. Obviously they were Olympians but I had no idea which sport. I worked up the courage to go talk to them and they were extremely nice, per usual of Danish people. I found out they were Sailers and had won the gold medal in Sailing aboard the 49er. After chatting for a bit I moved on. A little later I noticed another possible Sailer that I hadn't met earlier. And deciding that my chances here were limited I went to talk to him. Turns out he lives in the same area of Arhus that I lived in, Risskov. We chatted for a bit more and I asked for a picture. At this point he takes his Gold Medal out of his pocket and tells me I need to put it on for the picture. This obviously is a stunning turn of events and so naturally I'm stunned. He puts the medal and me and we snap a photo. He gave me some time to inspect the medal for myself: it's decently heavy, shiny, made of gold, had his sport and boat name engraved on it, was inset with jade on one side and had some crazy design on the other side. I didn't want to take it off, but something about it being his persuaded me to give it back up. What's awesome is that I didn't even know he had the medal with him and he volunteered to have me wear it which is sweet. A truly cool experience to be wearing a gold medal!

Lost and Found

Quick story before I head down to the Olympic Green for Athletics tonight (this story will be followed either tonight or tomorrow by the story of the actual game):

On the way to The Denmark, a local Beijing bar frequented by Danish, European and American people alike, after Denmark's win in Handball over Germany the other night, I somehow left my phone in my lap and when I got out it must have fell in the cab unbeknownst to be. I had met a ton of amazing Danish people on the subway and at the game and was riding in the cab with three of them. After getting to the bar and realizing my phone was gone I obviously lashed out in rage and started throwing things. Well not quite rage and throwing things, but I was pretty upset because to get another phone would take way too much time and effort and money and we only had a little over a week left. Let me also say that a cell phone here is COMPLETELY NECESSARY! So the thought of all those things crossing my mind made me quite worried and essential ended the night of revelry that was expected after the Danish victory. So...this is where the kindness of a lot of people come in. I used one Danish girls phone to do the only thing I could think of and call my phone back. Someone answered and in decent English I thought they told me the cab driver would come back to the bar. Well that didn't happen. I used another Danish guys phone to call again, this time the person answered in Chinese. Long story short, over the course of the next hour/hour and a half I continued to use the Danish guys phone and three Chinese people stopped on the street outside the bar to help me translate whatever the person on the other side was saying. Finally after the 3rd guy finished translating he told me to go back to my University and the phone would be waiting there. I profusely thanked the Danish people for their help and hustled into a cab over to Renmin only to find a group of Mizzou students waiting next to two cabs. Sure enough one of the cabbies had my phone! The Mizzou people had tried to explain that they knew me but the women said she would only give it to me, how amazing is that! I tried offering her money but she refused and instead just wanted a hug and a picture. Three other people have seen their phones disappear is cabs here, but after almost 2 hours of calling and pleading and the like, I got my phone back for a hug and a picture. Crazy, crazy stuff!

Olympic Spirit

I met a women the other week who if I remember correctly had been to about 7 Olympic Games. The first half of her Olympic experiences were spent working in Press Operations, but after she stopped working the Olympics she's kept coming back. She can't take herself away from the Olympic spirit, the feelings that an event like this brings out.

I've come to realize exactly what she means. And just as she said, it's something special. Bringing the entire world into one place at one time is amazing. It's impossible to be unhappy here right now, or at least as a fan. The joy of others is just way too contagious. I've talked to at least one person from every continent except Antarctica and cheered for countries I probably could have cared less about two months ago. It's the Olympic spirit that has kept her coming back every year and it's that same Olympic spirit that will most certainly bring me back to the Olympics again.

A Bolt of Lighting

The 100M dash is one of the most electric events at the Olympic. And just when you thought it couldn't get any better some guy comes along and completely destroys the field. A lot of us volunteers were lucky enough to get free tickets for Athletics last night and what an amazing time it was. This was my first venture into the Bird's Nest! Never before had I been a part of a crowd that large, 91,000 people packed it in. There really didn't have to be anything going on, just being there was awesome. Feeling the Olympic energy and being a part of the moment. It was also great to really cheer all out for the US at an event since this was my first event as a spectator. But the funny thing was that even though Tyson Gay didn't qualify for the 100 finals, it couldn't have been more exciting. When you have so many great story lines and countries competing you can't help but cheer for everyone. And I had no problem cheering for Jamaica and Usain Bolt. I hope everyone at home saw the race and if you didn't Youtube it because it was insane. He is such an electrifying figure. We all flipped out at the end of the race when we realized what he had done and the building went nuts. Certainly one of the cooler sports moments I've ever witnessed. You couldn't help but scream for Jamaica when you saw him dancing around the stadium after the race. Oh and p.s., the Bird's Nest isn't too bad of a place.

News and Notes

I saw my first ever live boxing match yesterday when I worked at the Boxing venue. Olympic boxing is much different than the heavyweight Tyson-Lennox Lewis boxing that people think of. Everyone fighting is an amateur and they wear padded helmets. It was awesome regardless.

Tonight I'm attended one of the best events at the Olympics: the Men's 100M dash. Hopefully it can live up to the hype and we'll have 3 guys at the tape in a photo finish. It's also going to be my first time in the Bird's Nest so I'm excited about that.

To Be or Not to Be

There is an interesting, but albeit logical phenomenon at the local markets here. One that makes me want to give up my American label. Vendors at the markets assume that all Americans are rich, which can make things tougher when you’re trying to bargain. The sensible alternative: tell them you’re Canadian. For some reason Chinese love Canadians. Walking around in the market I saw maple leafs everywhere. And the great thing about it is that you can’t tell an American apart from a Canadian, or at least the Chinese can’t.

The Opening Ceremonies are tomorrow and I strongly urge everyone to give up their morning and watch. From what I’ve read and heard they are going to be spectacular. A few of us have a plan now to go down towards the Bird’s Nest and get as close as possible, stake out a spot and chill. Obviously, if I watched it on TV I would be able to see everything, but I could watch it on TV back in STL, I couldn’t be outside the actual stadium. I just want to be around the atmosphere and see the fireworks and feel the excitement. Since I’ve learned here to not follow a lot of my predictions when it comes to China, I don’t even want to imagine how many people might be downtown and how crazy things are going to be. Just pray that everything goes off smoothly and there aren’t any disturbances. No matter your feelings on China, this needs to go off well.

Road Cycling starts on Saturday and it is the first marquee medal of the Games. The men ride on Saturday, followed by the women on Sunday. After two days off, both the Men and Women race their time trials on Wednesday

I Saw the Sign

When you think of going to China, one may look at the Great Wall, Forbidden City or Xi’an Clay Soldiers as the coolest thing one can do. Well they are right, the Great Wall is outstanding (more later on that) and really awe inspiring in many places. However, the best night of our trip belongings to July 24th, the night before the last Olympic tickets went on sale at the main ticket office. Olympic tickets were sold in four flights and it was announced five days prior that the fourth and final flight would go on sale starting at 9am on July 25th. Although tickets would be available at all venues, the main ticket office near the Olympic Green was selling tickets to some of the most sought after events: athletics, basketball, baseball and handball (well maybe handball isn’t an overall hot seller, but I wanted the tickets). A group of us was made privy to this clearly public information on the 24th and decided to camp out in line in order to secure tickets on the 25th. Several people went ahead of me and bought the essentials (yoga mats, pizza slices and beer) at Wal-Mart. Clearly we were experienced line waiters, forgetting that in the 12 hours or so we planned to sit there that maybe water might be a good option in the humid Beijing night. I joined the group at the subway and we made it down to the ticket area at about 7:00pm, strutting out of the subway station fairly confident that only a short 12 hour wait stood between us and some great, cheap tickets. Naturally we weren’t shocked to see an already long line forming, one we guesstimated to hold a couple hundred people. After all there are almost 20 million people in this city, some of them must have free time to get tickets. As we followed the giant snake of a line our fears continued to increase that maybe we might not get tickets, perhaps our best efforts were for not. And it only took one look around the corner of the next street to at the same time completely dash our hopes and make our jaws drop in astonishment. There lay before us tens of thousands of Chinese stretching out into the distance. The rest is history…


http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/gallery/2008/jul/24/olympics2008.china.beijing?picture=335958099

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/jul/24/olympicgames2008.china1

http://www.mingpaonews.com/20080725/spb1.htm
The captions says: A group of American volunteer came to buy ticket, but after seeing the scene they opt out (or maybe something like chickened out?) They also made a "the line starts here" sign to entertain themselves.

It says in the article: A few American volunteers hoped to get baseball tickets, they brought yoga mats, beer and food hoping to be first in line, but when they arrive at 6pm, they realized they were too late.

Eric was quoted: This is too scary! We came too late! Even if we start lining up now, we still won't get ticket, so we're just having a picnic here and have a look at the scene of lines."

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Our legend is too big to describe is a few measly words so I will say only that for a solid 3 hours we were the party, we were “it”, we were the news, we were what the French call a certain – I don’t know what, we were the stars (and oh how thankful the Chinese were to see stars because you sure can’t see them in the sky), we were Westerners, we were ‘those guys’, we were causing so much of a distraction the police broke it up…and it was AWESOME!