Olympic Experience

Katie and I landed in Beijing last Thursday afternoon. Our flight to Kunming didn't leave until Friday morning so we decided it was worth it to venture out to see if we could catch a glimpse of the Olympic excitement. We took one of the new subway lines and then walked as far as we could towards the Bird's Nest, Water Cube, and Olympic Green area. It was slightly rainy, there were big crowds milling about, and jet lag was setting in. We didn't see any events and we didn't get to run into Michael Phelps (as Katie was hoping), but it was cool to see the burning torch and to hear the cheers coming out of the stadiums.

I was in China in 2001 when they made the announcement that Beijing would host the 2008 Olympics. After that, whenever I visited Beijing, I would see the Olympic countdown signs. After seeing the number of days in the hundreds and even thousands, it was amazing to see it down to zero.

I've decided my Olympic experience was quite complete. I got to see most of the coverage including the Opening ceremonies in English in America. I made great use of dad and mom's DirectTV to record the events and skip over commercials. I got to see most of my favorite events. I cheered for and against China (by the way, I think the final medal tally was a good compromise . . . China with the most golds gains face and pride, America maintains its reputation with the most medals). I got to see the buildings in person but didn't have to pay anything or wait in line. And I watched the closing ceremony in China.

And now we wait to see what's next in China . . .


Oh and a new photo for this post . . . we saw a family on the subway on the way to the Bird's Nest. Their son who was about four or five, had the Olympic running man logo shaved into his head! It's a little hard to see in the photo because the subway was so crowded it was impossible to get a good pictures, but I think it's so crazy how crazy Chinese people were about the Olympics!