aleem in china

Olympic Wrap-up

2008-09-02T16:00:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! I just wanted to write a final post to say, first and foremost, thanks for reading! Knowing how many of you were visiting this blog made it really exciting to write. Thanks for all your comments, emails, etc. I really appreciate it. At the height of the Olympics I was averaging 200 readers a day! I had a fantastic time and it was really fun sharing my experiences with all of you.

I'd been to China two other times and I think that because of that I thought this trip would not be as new an experience as it turned out to be. Urban China is changing so fast that even a visit every year means that I am still surprised by new developments. And the Olympics were so much bigger, more emotional, more exciting, more fun, and more impressive than I realized they would be. The super-friendly, ridiculously helpful, and genuinely caring army of Olympic Park volunteers alone made an impression on me that I could never have guessed. I don't know how many other trips in my life will be as compelling and impactful as this one.

Some other bits of business before I wrap this up.

I've posted a complete gallery of the photos Jenn and I took (some I posted on the blog, some I did not) - from the first day to the last - on smugmug. You can get to it by clicking here. Be sure to also check out Jeff Kao's guest posts on cycling (1 and 2) on this blog and his photos on flickr.

I've also just put up two other new posts besides this one.

1. I edited together snippets of video of the trip from the Great Wall back to the Kao's condo in Beijing... it shows the progression from rural to urban in about 4 minutes.

2. The Fuwa videos and pics were so popular that I've posted a final Fuwa entry below. If you're curious, the Fuwa dancing at synchronized diving, the crowded McDonalds, and entering the Bird's Nest were the three most popular videos.

I'll be keeping the blog up for the forseable future - so feel free to pass it along to other friends and families. My Aunt Amy even printed out each entry and mailed them to my non-computer using grandmother! Gotta love that!

Thanks for reading!

From the Great Wall to Beijing

2008-09-02T15:16:00.000-07:00

The drive from the section of the Great Wall that we visited back to Beijing is about an hour. I took snippets of video during that drive as we moved from rural to urban and cut them together.

On the way to the wall we passed through some really rural towns but I didn't take video (stupid, stupid!) so this montage really only gives you a feel for somewhat rural to urban... At the very end you can see the mall with the video screen sky above it that I mentioned a while ago.

More Fuwa! (aka more Friendlies!)

2008-09-02T09:53:00.000-07:00

The video of the Fuwa dancing at synchronized diving turned out to be the most popular video clip I posted. And, as I mentioned in some other posts, I was a big fan of the Beijing Olympic mascots. So here are more Fuwa pics and videos!

Pics and Video of Fuwa and Cheerleaders at Women's Gold Medal Soccer Game

Fuwa cheering on baseball

VIDEO: Fuwa and Cheerleaders at Men's Gold Medal Soccer Final:

Fuwa being carried to the middle of the Bird's Nest (it's too tiring for the performers to walk the whole way) during prep for the Closing Ceremony.

Fuwa (bottom left) during the Closing Ceremony pre-show.

Additional Photos/Video from the Closing Ceremonies

2008-08-25T01:57:00.000-07:00

See my previous post for details on my experience at the Closing Ceremonies. Here I'm just posting some additional photos and two pieces of video (one of me and Jenn showing what came in the gift bag and one snippet from the ceremony itself).

Before the show:

What's in the bag?:

150,000 plastic torches:

Closing Ceremonies!

2008-08-24T20:01:00.000-07:00

Our Olympic experience ended spectacularly. Our seats in the Bird's Nest were unbelievable and the show was beautiful, surprising, and very impressive. In person I thought the highlights were the early pre-athlete arrangement where they had people rolling in those glowing cirque-du-soleil type wheels through roads of glowing people and the part where all those acrobats scaled the "torch" tower and creating moving human flames, flowers, etc. Really among the best live performances I've ever seen.

I was a little underwhelmed by the London portion... even Beckham himself seemed to feel a little out of place. Before the ceremony began Jenn had said... what the heck is Beckham gonna do? He can't sing, he can't dance... is he just gonna kick a soccer ball. Ummm... yeah... he's just gonna stand up and kick a soccer ball. The crowd went crazy for him anyway... and when the bus got stuck just before it exited the stadium the fans there screamed like 14 year old girls (and I don't think many of them were 14). I thought that the transforming red double decker bus was a great idea... but both Jenn and I really wanted the Rolling Stones to pop up out of it... or Paul McCartney... but know, it was just some pop singer I didn't recognize and Jimmy Page (who I also didnt' recognize at the time). Now don't get me wrong, Led Zeppelin ain't no slouch... but Jimmy Page on guitar wasn't quite enough. I wanted Sir Paul or Mick. And London's dancers seemed very hip and cool... in 1985!

Our seating area was a true international mix. To our left, Canadians and Australians. To our right Mexicans and Japanese. Behind us, Chinese and Russians. And that was just our immediate vicinity.

One of the coolest things was the gift bag... they give you all these props to be used at various points in the ceremony to create certain effects. I'll post a video later today of the contents.

All in all it was as memorable a show as I had hoped. I've posted a few pics below - I will post more photos and video later today when I have time to upload. I will also post a final entry or two when I get back home - can't believe that our trip is almost over!

Downsizing

2008-08-23T07:38:00.000-07:00

Our Olympic cabal is splitting up. Jeff went home earlier in the week and Katherine leaves in a few hours. We went out to dinner and went shopping on Wangfujing – a major shopping street. Here’s some video and pics (including candy shopping!). Compare the video of this Beijing modern shopping street with the night market in Xi'an.

Video of Wangfujing:

Final Sporting Events (and Vince Vaughn)

2008-08-23T06:22:00.000-07:00

We saw our last Olympic events over the past few days… only the Closing Ceremony remains. I can’t believe our trip is almost over!

Taekwondo was pretty cool… especially when they shriek and kick at the same time (both men and women). It was pretty interesting to see that whenever a Taiwanese fighter was in the ring the Chinese crowd would cheer for him by saying “Chinese Team, Add Gas!” (in other words, they were referring to him as Chinese)… while the Taiwanese fans would cheer for him by saying his name and then Add Gas, (in other words, they wouldn’t refer to him as being on the Chinese team). Everyone uses Jiayou, they could agree on that. And believe me, the Chinese fans REALLY cheered for the Taiwanese fighters… there was never a China vs. Taiwan match-up so I didn’t get to see what would happen in that situation.

Here is some video of the crowd reacting to a sudden-death overtime victory by a Taiwanese fighter:

The next morning we went and saw one of the baseball semifinals, Korea vs. Japan. Korea had a remarkable 7-0 record in the round robin and advanced into the playoffs as the #1 seed. But the Japanese jumped out ahead in this game until the Koreans pulled of a thrilling comeback and won the game 5-2.

Two Korean fans were SO excited that I just had to take a video of them when their team won:

We also saw two gold medal soccer games. The women’s game was Brazil vs. USA… it was a rainy, somewhat awkward game in which it seemed like Brazil was the better team but the USA managed to win 1-0. The Brazilians were crushed, they could barely smile on the Silver Medal stand. The men’s gold medal game was fantastic! Nigeria and Argentina battled it out in a beautiful contest in front of a crowd of 90,000 at the Bird's Nest. Wonderful passing, attacking, and defense. In the end, Argentina prevailed 1-0.

One of the fun parts of the women's soccer final was the celebrities in attendance. Kobe Bryant was there but we could barely see him. Vince Vaughn, however, was sitting a row or two in front of us:

Okay – that’s the wrap-up. Our last Olympic happening is the Closing Ceremony which happens on Sunday here in Beijing.

One last note – sorry I haven’t kept up with posting additional photos on smugmug… I’ve just not been able to find the time. If you read Jeff’s recent guest post you saw that he’s posted many of his Olympic photos on flickr – they’re really great (as was his earlier post about Olympic cycling). When I get back to the U.S. I’ll post a complete China photo album on smugmug.

Jeff's Photos

2008-08-21T18:56:00.000-07:00

I've put my photos from Beijing on flickr. Here are a few...

The Olympic Park at Night!

2008-08-20T20:55:00.000-07:00

One of the key benefits of getting to attend an evening track and field event is that you then have admission to the Olympic park at night. The Bird’s Nest and Water Cube are cool during the day but they are at their best at night.

Video and pics:

Here's the video - check out how the Water Cube is actually animated:

Xi'an Trip: Terra Cotta Soldiers, Night Market, and Surprise Tour Guides

2008-08-20T20:54:00.001-07:00

Katherine, Kyle, and I went to Xi’an. Well, scratch that. All three of us were supposed to go to Xi’an but Kyle lost his boarding pass and before he could remedy the situation (it’s hard when you can’t speak Chinese) he missed the flight. So it was just Katherine and me. Xi’an is the cultural center of China and was the homebase of many of the early dynasties. It is most famous for the Terra Cotta soldiers.

When we arrived at our hotel the person at the desk asked us if we wanted to arrange a taxi to the Terra Cotta army. We said yes and paid in advance. What he neglected to mention (strangely enough) was that the price for the taxi included a totally friendly, awesomely knowledgeable, English-speaking tour guide named Cathy! She really added a lot to the trip and took us through all of the currently excavated pits at the site. The soldiers are truly amazing and worthy of their "8th Wonder of the Word" monniker. We also stumbled upon the grand opening of an exhibit showing the most recent discoveries from the tomb (from a dig not open to the public): statues of entertainers, acrobats, and wrestlers. It seems that in addition to his army, the Qin emperor wanted to bring the fun stuff with him into the afterlife. The discovery of the acrobats, etc. has really raised hopes for what else will be discovered when the rest of the site is excavated (there is supposed to be a representation of his entire imperial city). During the tour Cathy asked us if we thought Barack Obama would win the presidency and she said that he seems good because he wants to end the war in Iraq and is very positive. She could only describe his opponent as “his rival who is not as young as he is.”

Here you can see the soldiers being re-assembled, a photo montage of many of the unique individual faces (the soldiers are not copies, they are unique individual people), the newly discovered acrobats, and our tour guide Cathy.

We also walked along Xi’an’s old city wall and, inadvertently, got a terrific tour at the Shaanxi Museum of History. Two tour guides in training approached Katherine and offered to guide us through the exhibit because they wanted to practice their English (they are trying, specifically, to be English language guides). It was a terrific way to see the museum – they pointed out key artifacts (like this golden mythical ram) and it was fun to help them with the pronunciation of certain words (overall their English was very good).

Last tidbit from Xi’an – we went to a pretty terrific night market. Xi’an has a huge Muslim population and we visited the Islamic area. It had such a different vibe from Beijing! The street food was all Halal, the road narrow and packed, and the building were old (as opposed to the modern, wide, and still packed night spots of Beijing).

Here are is video of my walk through the night market plus some pics:

Some vendors are typical, like this food stall, and others are not... like the guy who somehow has a HUGE telescope and sells a look at the planet Jupiter.

Ice Cream for lunch! (this is what happens when Katherine and I leave Kyle, who would have scoffed at this idea, behind)

Eating Lunch on a Wonder of the World

2008-08-20T20:09:00.000-07:00

I took Kyle and Katherine to the Great Wall. It was my second visit, their first. Just like last time, the wall lives up to its name. It’s pretty spectacular. As Katerine pointed out, it’s hard to think of a more impressive/iconic/famous man-made site. Maybe the pyramids? Here are a few photos from our visit including our lunch… we’ve been saying “We had lunch on the Great Wall of China!” pretty much non-stop since.

I've also included video of one of the amazingly loud cicada type bugs that are around the wall.

Video: A really noisy bug on the Great Wall.

Subversive Art and Contemporary Ceramics

2008-08-20T10:19:00.000-07:00

Jenn organized a day she called “Contemporary China Day.” We ate at a contemporary Buddhist cuisine restaurant, visited her favorite ceramics studio in China (Spin ceramics), and then walked around 798, a hip artist neighborhood/studio compound similar to the Brewery in LA and other artist enclaves in American cities. At Spin we met, for the first time (this is Jenn’s fourth or fifth visit), the house dogs. At 798 we saw some terrific graffiti and (file this under “China is different than you might expect”) some pretty subversive art, including some pieces mocking the central government’s much prized Olympic slogan/narrative: “One World, One Dream.” I was very interested to see this art being publicly displayed. On the flip side of this apparent openness is today's New York Times article about two old women being sentenced to a labor camp for repeatedly applying for an Olympic protest permit. China is full of contradictions.

Graffiti and buildings at 798

The Dogs of Spin Ceramics

Jumbo Sports Recap

2008-08-20T09:35:00.000-07:00

I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had much time to blog. Here’s an overview of all of the Olympic events we’ve seen since I last posted. Also - look further down for guest blog posts from Jeff about the cycling events he went to.

Tennis

Grade A tennis at the Olympics! We started the day with a somewhat boring doubles match that featured Roger Federer. It was great to see him but the match was so-so. Thankfully, the rest of the day more than made up for it. We watched three terrific battles. All of them were three-set fights, all of them featured great comebacks. The first Men’s Singles Semi-Final between Blake and Gonzales was a great big gun vs. scrapper match and Gonzales, the scrapper, prevailed in a 10-8 fifth set (no tie break in last set Olympic tennis). Gonzales was powered to victory by the five loudest and most committed Chilean fans on the planet. Then we saw the top ranked woman player, Jankovic, lose a tough three setter to number six Safina. And to finish our epic day (we started at 4pm and ended at 12:30am) we watched a final epic match between #1 Rafael Nadal and #3 Novak Djukovic. Nadal is as much a star in China as he elsewhere… the fans went crazy for him like they do at Roland Garros: Women swooned, men screamed, and the photographers were everywhere. One of them set up right over Jeff’s head with a 400mm lens.

Oh, also… see my food post for a brief note about an unusual item that Jenn ate at the event.

Track & Field

Our first event inside the Bird’s Nest! I wrote earlier about how I thought gymnastics was better on TV than it was in person. I was sort of worried that track and field would be the same – a bunch of events happening at the same time, relatively far away. I needn’t have worried. It was great. The difference is that with track and field, the result of what you are watching is very clear – you can tell who wins the race, whether the high jumper clears the bar, etc. So you have the thrill of being there live and complete comprehension of the event (unlike gymnastics where you can’t really tell how well someone is doing far away). The three best events were the hammer throw, the women’s steeplechase, and the men’s 10000m. We saw a world record and an Olympic record respectively in the last two – totally thrilling races. You can see here a picture of the steeplechase… who the hell invented this sport? They jump over a barrier and land in water and then go run around the track and repeat?

And the Bird’s Nest itself was quite impressive – a truly grand venue. Here’s a brief video showing the inside of the stadium.

Tomorrow I'll post my pictures and video from outside the Bird's Nest and Water Cube at night - very cool stuff.

Softball

We saw two games, Japan vs. Canada and Australia vs. Venezuela. Unfortunately, neither game was very competitive. It was, in all honesty, pretty boring. And I’m a baseball and softball fan. We sat in the bleachers with a bunch of native Chinese (because our softball tickets were purchased in the domestic lottery, not the American lottery) and one of the fans asked how to translate “Jiayou!” into English so the Australians would understand. I taught him how to do “Let’s Go, Australia, Let’s Go!” – that was about as close a translation as I could think of. The bleachers were mostly filled with a bunch of school groups. So when they left in the 3rd inning of the second game we had almost the entire section to ourselves. Here are some pics of the kids leaving and our resulting space.

As we left softball we walked past about 20 or so of the Olympic volunteers who do crowd control, offer directions, etc. at all Olympic events. These volunteers have been outstanding. They are super friendly and helpful and speak great English. I can’t say enough about what a good job the Beijing officials did with this aspect of the games. What was funny about this particular night was that attendance was pretty low at the softball game but they had enough volunteers for a full house. So when it was just us walking out and no one else, every volunteer we passed (about one every five feet) said “Good bye!” to us as we went by. It was like an echo chamber of good will.

Additional photos of all sporting events coming soon on the smugmug site.

Chinese Food is Good (Part 2) and Chinese Olympic Food is Weird (Part 1)

2008-08-20T09:15:00.000-07:00

As usual, we’ve been eating quite well – especially because this is Kyle and Katherine’s first visit. Recent highlights: Shanghainese dim sum, Beijing Duck restaurant, and a contemporary Buddhist vegetarian restaurant. Pictures of the amazing food:

Dry ice fruit desert at Buddhist restaurant:

Soup Dumplings!

Beijing Duck (and much more) dinner:
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And on the “Chinese Olympic Food is sometimes really weird” front, there was this strange item that we ate at the tennis match. It was a traditional Chinese sweet roll… except for the part where they put a big strip of bacon on it and then covered that with ketchup and mayonnaise. What can I say, we were hungry. As I hope I’ve made clear, I think the Beijing Olympic Committee has really knocked it out of the park in terms of the buildings, organization, volunteers, events, etc. But the food at the Olympic venues is the one disappointment.

Mysterious Tennis Stadium Food:

A "hot dog" at the softball game:

Track Cycling at the Laoshan Velodrome.

2008-08-20T09:14:00.002-07:00

If you read my 1st post on watching the men's road race you might have asked "Jeff: There has to be a better way to watch cycling than to waste all that time & effort to watch 100+ bikers race by you at 25 mph for less than a few minutes?" The answer my friends is Track Racing. The track affords you all the wonders of bicycle racing in an indoor, well lit, air conditioned environment. Scoreboards & announcers with European accents explain what the hell is going on. If watching road racing is a 3rd world affair, than a visit to the velodrome is a decidely 1st world experience albeit with a first world price and exclusivity attached. My ticket cost 40 RMB and I was only able to get it after clicking refresh on a website more times than I can count.

The Laoshan Velodrome is a new structure built by a famous German architect just for the Beijing Olympics. It features a 333 m smooth wood track with two 180 degree turns on either end with each banked at about 32 degrees. A track bicycle consists of a single fixed gear with no brakes. If a rider is pedaling the bike moves, coasting is not an option, with riders using their muscles to slow their machines down & eventually stop. Remember your GI Joe Big Wheel as a kid? That's a fixed gear bike. Track bikes are the most efficient bicycle you can use and they are specially designed to race on velodromes (or lately wherever your local hipsters like to hang out).

The two events I saw were the Team Sprint qualifiers and the Individual Men's & Women's Sprint qualifiers. In all three cases the goal is simiple: try to go as fast as you can and get the shortest time possible. There are actually many differnt types of track racing events with some like Keiren and the Madison being more involved & even more enjoyable to watch.

The team sprint is an interesting event in that it requires the team of 4 racers to be completely in sync with each other. If a team is working well than they should look like a train engine with their legs pumping up & down like pistons in a steady rhythm. The key in this event is that the racer in front is doing significantly more work than his 3 coworkers behind him. This is thanks to drafting. Next time your riding in a car stick your hand out the window palm against the wind, then stick your other hand out the window right behind it. Feel how your first hand is getting battered by the wind, while your second hand is shielded? That's what's going on in the team sprint.

Each racer takes a turn riding into the wind with changes taking place as they round the corners using the bank of the track to help them smoothly slow down & speed up to maintain a constant speed. In this case almost 40 mph! Finally, at the end one teammate will take a massive pull putting in everything they can and then drop out of the race. This is because a team only needs 3 racers to finish and this move is called a Dead Man's Pull.

The next two events were individual events where we watched each racer try to ride as fast as they can for 200 meters. Average speeds while slower than the team sprint were still extremely high. The definite highlight was watching Shuang Guo of China break an Olympic Record (The 12 year old record was almost old enough to be a Chinese gymnst (oh snap!)). The Chinese fans came alive with their cries of Jia Yo! and even the non-Chinese joined in. I often get asked why the Chinese aren't any good at bike racing when so many people ride and my answer has always been that it is a matter of will & resources and has nothing to do with any inherent physiological difference between Asian & Non-Asians. Shuang Guo proved that point for me with that ride. I think she really proved that it is just a matter of time before we see the Chinese competing in the Tour De France.

The Men's Cycling Road Race

2008-08-20T09:14:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone!

While Aleem is out experiencing non-Olympic related China I’m going to post about two of the events I went to. When I was planning my trip to Beijing I only had two I wanted to see: the men’s cycling road race & any of the track cycling events at the new Laoshan velodrome.

The men’s road race was on Friday the 8th along a 254 km (152 mi) long course that started in the heart of Beijing, passed by Tiananmen Square, The Palace Museum (other wise known as The Formally Forbidden City), the Bird’s Nest, and winding all the way to a 7 miles loop at the Badaling section of The Great Wall.

One of the great things about road cycling is it is one of the very few sports where the athletes come to the spectators for free. Imagine Kobe Bryant showing up to your local hoop for a championship game or Jeff Gordon winning the Daytona 500 on Lake Shore Drive. In Europe for the Tour De France many spectators sit in front of their driveways while the peloton rolls by listening to the action on a tiny radio.

Beijing, on the other hand, took a very different attitude with their focus more on the safety of the course than on ease of watching the race. My parents & I headed out from our apartment driven by Xia Xia, our driver, after packing a lunch. Our goal was to head up to the Wall and sit along the loop to watch the racers pass 7 times before the finish. What we found instead was that the police had shut down all access to the route. Every single side street, minor artery, access road, sidewalk, path, what-have-you was completely blocked by humourless policemen and inaccessible. At one point when we were stopped asking for directions I saw two taxis filled with European cycling fans frustrated at not being able to find the race.

Oddly there were still many Chinese fans alongside various parts of the route and we soon realized they didn’t just happen to show up. Here’s what Canadian cyclist Michael Barry had to say:

“In China, the crowds seemed orchestrated, lined along the roadside, holding Chinese flags every 20 meters with an Olympic flag in between, many uniformly dressed in yellow T-shirts. They encouraged us with military-like chants, a conductor cueing the crowd while police faced them to ensure they stayed in their spots. It was a stark contrast to the drunken crowds of Flandrian fans who run out alongside the riders in the Tour de France, their Flemish flags waving in the riders’ faces as we ascend the cobbled climbs in Belgium.”

In the end Xia Xia was able to find a spot on an overpass overlooking the route before the Great Wall. My dad found a small frontage road that we scrambled down to where we got an excellent view as the racers passed. Then, thanks to the reduced traffic congestion, we were able to make it back to our air-conditioned apartment to watch the exciting finish at home.

While I was disappointed that we weren’t able to see the climb near Badaling all in all it was a great experience watching the road race. China as a country is still new to the sport of road racing and with time not only will they learn to more effectively hold races, but also maybe win a couple.

If you’d like to know how the race actually went you can read the nytimes coverage here.

Next time Track Racing at the Laoshan Velodrome.

Our Olympic Cabal Is At Full Strength!

2008-08-16T14:00:00.000-07:00

My brother Kyle and my cousin Katherine arrived today! Add them to me, Jenn, Jeff, and Jenn/Jeff’s parents are you have the full roster of our Olympic attending team.

I played tour guide today and took Kyle and Katherine to the Forbidden City. We couldn’t go to Tiananmen Square because it was closed (I think the women’s marathon ended or began there). I’ve been to the Forbidden City before but it never fails to impress. When I think about what royalty in Europe was up to when the Emperors built this palace it makes me laugh. Frankly, even the height of European royal building (be it Versailles or some of the large Medieval castles) can’t hold a candle to the Forbidden City. I didn’t take many pictures this time (you can see my previous photos here) but here’s a few new ones:

For you knew readers, there are more photos on smugmug. If you've been keeping up with the smugmug uploads then you probably only need to start here.

Oh say can you see... the clear Beijing skies?

2008-08-16T09:30:00.000-07:00

If you read my post a few days ago you saw a picture of Jeff running to get a cab in the rain. I mentioned that I was very excited about the rain because it usually means that the next day will be nice. The past two days more than lived up to that promise. I’ve never seen such beautiful days in Beijing. There’s been a lot of talk about pollution at these Olympics – and it has been really hazy since I arrived – but yesterday and today were terrific.

Everyone who lives here is talking about how much of a difference that anti-pollution measures have made. And I read a couple of interviews with competing athletes who felt that after competing they didn't think the air quality had impacted their performance and were puzzled that the media had made such a big deal out of the pollution in the run up to the games. So who knows...

I don't know what the American media is saying now about the pollution but I think things have been pretty good.

The proof is in the pudding:

Archery – My New Favorite Sport

2008-08-14T02:40:00.000-07:00

Today I fell in love with archery. I had no idea people took this sport so seriously. Jenn said it reminded her of our first visit to Comic-Con… you just stand there, looking around, saying “Who knew this many people cared about Stargate: Atlantis?” When we arrived at the archery venue we were just in time to catch the Korean fans doing their warmup. No, not the Korean archers, the fans… warming up. They were literally practicing their cheers. They were terrific. Their cheers have multiple sections and they switch props between cheers for variety. And they have cheers for specific archers. I’ve posted below some terrific video of the Korean fans doing cheers (including them destroying the Chinese fans – in the same way that the Koreans destroyed the Chinese archers).

And, in keeping with my theme of the Olympics actually being as touchy-feely as Bob Costas says they are… As usual, there were only a handful of Mexican fans at today’s event. But also as usual, what they lacked in numbers they made up for in spirit – so much so that by the end of the session they had inspired all of the Chinese fans around them to help them cheer on the Mexican archer. This resulted in the awesome combination cheer of “Jiayou Mexico!” See video below of the Mexico-China powerhouse.

And it wasn’t just the fans. Being there in person, it really was apparent how fricking hard archery is. And how cool the archers are. The sport is really up my alley in that your fate is almost always in your own hands. It’s a relatively quick sport yet it clearly relies heavily on concentration.

To cap it off, we got to see “archery legend” Park Sung-Hyun of Korea break the Olympic record for archery. She scored a 115 including a perfect round of 3 tens (bullseyes). That’s right… I got to see an Olympic record… how cool is that? I’d also like to add that the archers are the most stylish athletes so far. I’ve posted some photos on smugmug of their cool shoes and quiver accessories.

I don’t know if any of you watched archery on television (and who knows, maybe it’s cooler in person) but I highly recommend it. It was the best time I’ve had so far at the Olympics.

Here are some videos.

Archer shoots and the Koreans cheer!:

China vs Korea in Cheering:

Mexican fans get the Chinese to team up with them ("Jiayou Mexico!"):

Korean Cheer with scarves:

If these videos don't play for you here, you can try going to smugmug directly and watching them by clicking here. I know some of you told me you preferred the newer method but it takes me too long to do for multiple videos... Trust me, they are worth seeing... these people are this excited about archery... archery!

Lastly - thanks to all of you who have been commenting and emailing! It's great to hear from you and I've been trying to reply to your questions, etc. in the comments section.

A few random photos

2008-08-14T02:39:00.001-07:00

I don’t have much to blog about but here are some photos I took that I wanted to post.

We drove by the Athlete’s Village. I thought it was cool how they hang their flags outside their windows:

Jeff going to catch a cab in the rain (yay rain! – that means it will be nice out tomorrow):

Gymnastics: Better on TV?

2008-08-13T07:51:00.000-07:00

Today’s Event: The Women’s Team Gymnastics Final. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I went. It was fun, I got caught up in the neck and neck battle between the Chinese and the Americans… but I think the whole sport looks a lot cooler on TV. In person you’re kinda far away, it’s hard to focus because more than one event is going on at the same time, and you have to really concentrate to figure out how many points one team needs to be in first place. Whenever they would replay something on the screen (which used footage from the NBC cameras) it always looked cooler. Having gone once, I wouldn’t watch gymnastics in person again. It was pretty great, though, to see the crowd go crazy when the Chinese won.

As usual, I’ve posted a bunch more of my photos from the day on smugmug, accessible via the link in the upper right.

But here are two photos that I just feel like posting here:

Jenn, who made out like a bandit because she mentioned to both Jeff and I before we visited the gift shop that she liked Jingjing...

And a kid I saw in the Olympic Park:

The Fuwa (aka The Friendlies)

2008-08-13T07:46:00.000-07:00

Let’s be honest… The mascots for the past couple Olympics have flat out sucked (yes Atlanta, I’m talking about you!). Among the best things about this year’s Olympic games are the Fuwa or Friendlies. Their names are actually derived from the sounds of the phrase “Welcome to Beijing” (“Bei-Jing-Huan-Ying-Ni”… hence Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying, and Nini). In my opinion they are hands down the best Olympic mascots ever. Go ahead, I challenge you, show me better Olympic mascots (I welcome the debate in the comment section).

In addition to the more abstract symbols for each event (which I pointed out in my post on the Olympic tickets) there is also a Fuwa depiction for every sport. Some of them are pretty priceless. My two favorites are Shooting and Modern Pentathalon.

UPDATE: Leif wrote me an email that perfectly sums up why I love the Modern Pentathalon fuwa: "It's like a Teletubby quit his job to become a pirate or something."

McDonalds Madness in the Olympic Park

2008-08-13T07:34:00.001-07:00

I haven’t eaten at a McDonalds in 5 or 6 years. Broke my ban today because I was starving… and I’m kinda glad… because it was a madhouse and I captured this video.

Note the priceless expression on Jeff’s face at the start of the clip.

Speaking of video clips – if you don’t have the latest Flash Player installed on your computer you probably couldn't watch the videos I posted yesterday. I've tried a new method with this video clip. And, if you click the photo link in the upper right and go directly to Smugmug you should be able to watch the ones I posted yesterday - they are interspersed among the pictures.

If this new method of video posting isn't working you can see the video here.

Our first event: Synchronized Diving!

2008-08-12T04:06:00.000-07:00

Our first day at the Olympics! I have to admit, during the year and a half of planning I didn’t spend much time thinking about how cool it would be to actually be here. All of the cheesy stuff you hear Bob Costas say about the Olympics is true! There really was national pride, international understanding, and amazing competition. Synchronized diving is a great sport. As someone who is pretty bad at understanding the finer points of what makes a dive good or bad, this was the diving event for me – because it’s pretty clear whether or not the two divers are in sync. I’ve posted a video of one of the dives at the bottom of this post. 10 meters is a lot higher than it sounds!

The best fans in the whole house were the Mexicans– they had mulit-part cheers, noise makers, and a lot of enthusiasm. And when Mexican team won the bronze they went crazy. But afterwards, in true Olympic spirit, they gathered together the Brazilian, Argentinian, and Chinese fans around them for a group photo op, during which the Mexicans invented cheers for the Brazillians and the Argentines and adopted the common Chinese cheer of “Jia You!” (translation: “Add Gas!”). The Chinese won the gold – and it was clear even to a nube like me that they were an order of magnitude better than all of the other divers.

This being our first event, this was also our first visit to the Olympic Park. Five stars, China, five stars… you really nailed it. What a great place. The architecture is fantastic. Here are some pics of the Birds Nest and the Water Cube (you can see a lot more of my recent pics by clicking on the photo link in the upper right of the page).

Okay – I’ll end with the video I mentioned of the divers as well as a few other pieces of video. My favorite is The Friendlies getting’ down to some dance music inside the Water Cube.

Synchro Diving Video:

Olympic Park:

Inside the Water Cube:

The Friendlies Boogie Down!:

Brand Name China

2008-08-12T03:56:00.000-07:00

The Olympics have only heightened a trend that I’ve noticed in each of my visits to China – American brands are taking over. Walking around the two, count ‘em two, super malls that have been built near my in-laws condo it’s amazing to see how Americanized everything is. The two malls are called The Place (as in it’s the place to be) and SOHO (as in the New York or London neighborhood, depending on your prerogative).

Here’s The Place* – which has a huge video screen for a ceiling.

And here’s SOHO.*

*these photos are from a previous trip

Inside The Place and SOHO you can find an Apple Store, an NBA store, a Ferrari store, etc. and tons of other luxury brands (and a strange Piano staircase). And all over the city, Olympic sponsors are omnipresent, especially Coke and McDonalds.

I find that many people expect my photos to be of drab grey buildings with soldiers and tanks in the foreground… that’s not the new China… I’ve never seen a Chinese soldier in all of my visits… but I’ve seen at least ten Starbucks.

Chinese Food is Good!

2008-08-12T03:53:00.000-07:00

I never eat better than when I come to China. So I’ll try and post some food pics from time to time. Today’s pic: the awesome flaming sweet and spicy fish at a Peking Duck restaurant that we always go to.

Detective Dog (and yes, we have arrived in Beijing)

2008-08-10T01:52:00.000-07:00

We are now in Beijing! Got in a few hours ago. The new international airport terminal is really cool. But the highlight, by far, was Detective Dog! I saw the sign and then I saw one at work. I know, I know… we have drug/bomb sniffing dogs in America, too. I just like that their title (printed on their vests and signs) is Quarantine Detective Dog. Let me just stake my claim right now and say that The Adventures of Detective Dog is going to be my new movie/television/comic property.

You can click on the photos link on the right to get to my photo site and see an actual Detective Dog at work – as well as a copy of “Taxi Magazine” that I flipped through on the way from the airport - and the rest of the photos I’ve taken so far. I’ll be updating smugmug throughout the trip. We just went from the airport to the apartment – so I didn’t get to see much of Beijing so far. It didn’t seem all that different from last year. It was foggy (and that’s not a euphemism for pollution) and had been raining a little. The only new development aside from the new airport terminal was that they’ve pretty much finished Rem Koolhaas’s crazy CCTV building.

Our first event is on Tuesday (Women’s Synchronized Diving Final) but I’ll be out and about in Beijing in the meantime and will post some updates.

Beijing or Bust!

2008-08-09T01:00:00.000-07:00

We're off to the Olympics!

Here's my advice for flying internationally: sleeping pills or video iPod. Seriously... to defeat jet lag, depending on the direction you are flying and the time of day, you need to either sleep the entire flight (even though it's morning in the place you're leaving from) or stay awake the entire flight (even though it's time to go to bed in the place you're leaving from). The trick is to treat the the flight, from the moment it takes off, as if it exists in the destination's time zone. Does it totally eliminate jet lag? No - but it helps a lot! By the time you're reading this I'll probably already have dosed myself with some Tylenol PM and will hopefully be sound asleep somewhere over the Pacific.

Next post will be from Beijing!

In the meantime here are two interesting tidbits:

A terrific article in the LA Times* about how much China has changed in the last few decades: The Beijing She Knew Is Gone; In Its Place, the Beijing She Loves.
*On a sad note, we canceled our subscription to the LA Times this weekend in protest of recent reporter layoffs and editorial changes to the paper that are the brainchild of short-sighted and hypocritical new owner Sam Zell. Boo Sam Zell!!

And here is the first thing I've read that makes me consider actually boycotting these Olympics:
IBAF Changes Rules for Extra Innings Baseball.

Dr. Ticketlove… or how I learned to stop worrying and love the Olympic Ticket Lottery

2008-08-05T11:10:00.000-07:00

The process of getting tickets started 16 months ago and involved several international conference calls.

In April of 2007, CoSport’s U.S. ticketing website went online.

The hard part was figuring out your request. In Round 1, which was not first-come, first-serve but rather a lottery, you could ask for ten events. And in each event there were different price categories… and different maximum numbers of tickets you could ask for. And for each of your ten entries you could request a backup event… except it wasn’t just a list of 10 backups that would come into play if any of your requests were sold out. You had to assign each backup to a specific first choice.

And so began the machinations: If you are requesting a really high profile/hard to get event, should your backup for that event be another high profile event or a really easy event? If your first choice allows you a max of 6 tickets should your backup also be an event that allows up to 6 tickets or is one with a max of 4 okay? Should more than one of us request the same event given that the odds of any one of us getting our request fulfilled was so low. And what the heck did we want to see in the first place? I’ve never been to the Olympics and my normal-life sports-fandom is pretty much limited to Baseball and Tennis.

This is where the international conference calls came in to play. Our Olympic cabal includes: Me and my wife Jenn (Los Angeles), my brother Kyle (Los Angeles), Jenn’s brother Jeff (Chicago), my wife’s parents (Beijing), and my cousin (Washington DC). There were several multi-city conference calls as we plotted out how best to get the events we wanted.

Round 1 was followed by Rounds 2 and 3, which were first-come, first-serve… so that meant ordering tickets as soon as they were available… except CoSport would send out an announcement like this:

CoSport expects the live sales process to commence sometime late afternoon on Monday 31st March 2008 (US EST time). We will not provide the exact time, so please do not call or email Cosport requesting this information.

Thanks, that’s really helpful.

In the end, here’s what we did get, in the order that the events occur:

Diving – Women’s Synchronized Finals: We didn’t even know there was such a thing as synchronized diving… but we figured two divers are better than one.
Gymnastic – Women’s Team Finals: You can do it Kerry!
Archery – Men’s and Women’s Octafinals: Sadly, Geena Davis missed the cut and will not be on the U.S. team.
Tennis - Men’s and Women’s Semi-finals, Men’s Doubles Final
Track and Field -Women’s 100m Final, Men’s 10,000m Final, Women’s 3000m Steeplechase Final, and Men’s Hammer Throw Finals and a bunch of other events)
Baseball and Softball – total of 3 games
Taekwondo – Men’s (under 68kg) and Women’s (under 57kg) Final: Jenn was adamant that we get the lowest weight class so she could see people her size kicking ass.
Soccer – Men’s and Women’s Finals: It was quite a coup to score tickets to both of these, two of the hottest events in terms of domestic popularity alongside ping-pong and basketball.
Mountain Biking – Men’s and Women’s Cross Country Final
Closing Ceremonies – perhaps our greatest score, these tickets are so sought after that the Olympic Cmte is employing a system developed for the Germany World Cup – each ticket user had to submit a photo that will be physically printed onto the ticket.

If you have a particular interest in one of the events I have tickets for, click on the word "comment"at the bottom of this post and let me know. I’d love to get some background from a true fan and/or take a picture of someone/something that you would like, etc.

Anatomy of an Olympic Ticket

2008-07-29T17:15:00.000-07:00

If you’re interested, here’s what the tickets look like:

A. Apparently each event is assigned a symbol… this is diving.

B. Here you can see many of the other event symbols.

C. The official symbol of the Beijing Games, slogan: One World, One Dream.

D. If you haven’t seen a picture of the new Nat’l Aquatics Center, check it out… it’s crazy.

E. 500RMB = approx $75… our tickets ranged in price from $13 (baseball) to $220 (closing ceremonies).

F. Fancy-schmancy hologram that revealed a crazy black swirl pattern when photographed.

G. If you haven’t already noticed, the Chinese love the number 8… the games begin on 8/8/08 at 8:08pm. Why? It turns out the number 8 in Chinese sounds like the word for prosperity.

Why? Why? Why? (am I going to the Beijing Games?)

2008-07-28T21:22:00.000-07:00

Here’s the interesting thing about going to the Beijing Olympics…

Whenever I tell someone, I’m honestly not sure what their response will be:

AleemInChina: “I’m going to the Olympics in Beijing.”
JFondaRulz : “Why? You’re supporting genocide.”

AleemInChina: “I’m going to the Olympics in Beijing.”
eyeH8travel: “Why? It’s on TV.”

AleemInChina: “I’m going to the Olympics in Beijing.”
LakzImagiNation: “Why? The Olympics are lame-o.”

The rest of this blog is going to be about my day-to-day experiences at the 2008 Summer Games but I do want to get some of these questions out of the way.

Let’s start with Barbarella. I’m a firm believer in engagement. It’s a huge mistake to conflate the Chinese government (which I am in no way a fan of) with the Chinese people. Every time I go to China people come up to me wanting to practice their English and talk about the NBA… the more we visit, the better. Boycotting and isolationism end up hurting the Chinese people and the athletes rather than the government. If you'd like to read more about these and other issues related to reform and China (and the argument that neither isolationism or revolutionary activity will be effective) I suggest reading this New York Times Olympic Blog Entry and this New Yorker Article.

As for my travel-averse and/or crowd-averse and/or Bob Costas infatuated friends…

I love China, it’s one of my favorite places on earth to visit (amazing food, really friendly people, cool modern architecture, awe-inspiring historical sites). I’ve never been to the Olympics - there’s gotta be parts of it that are better live. And it’s actually pretty easy and normal for me to visit China. My in-laws live there, so I visit once a year. I have a place to stay and relatives who speak Chinese… all in all, it kinda seems like I’d be crazy not to go.

Lastly, to the Olympic haterz… What’s not to like? If you’re a sports fan, you get to watch some of the world’s best athletes. If not, don’t forget the human drama… most of these competitors have been training their whole lives for a few seconds in August of 2008. Not to mention the potential for athlete protests (think Mexico in 1968), domestic political protests, or doping scandals. I really think there’s something exciting for everyone.

Anyway, I leave for Beijing in 12 days! I can't wait. Before I go I'll do a few more posts about what events I'm going to, etc. And I'll be posting a "little known fact about the real China" with most posts while I'm there.

Leave me a comment if you have questions, etc.

Next Post: Dr. Ticketlove... or how I learned to stop worrying and love the Olympic Ticket Lottery