Day 5: The Grand Finale!!!

I spent a lot of the day walking around checking out the buildings in Beijing (I am a real estate guy after all) and some interesting pictures. These are all within one block of each other..look at the contrast between the new (1st and 4th pic) and the old communist era grey boxes:






























Video of the crazy 1st building:



The last night of track, which was super sad - I will need to do my best to go to London 2012 b/c it really is the most unbelievable atmosphere. Makes me remember how much I really love track. Some great finals including the 4x400 (both men and women), 5000 meters men final, 800 meter mens final, and womens 1500 meters.
Video of one of my fave races, the 5000 meters...hopefully this gives a sense of the pace they are going, they keep this up for 3 miles. To give you a sense, the winner ran about a 13 mins, which is something like 3 x 4 min, 15 second miles! Unfortunately the big U.S. hope Bernard Lagat was not able to come through but maybe next year at the World championships:


3 races for Bolt, 3 gold medals, 3 world records. Unbelievable. This is he and the Jamaican 4x100 team getting their golds.
The women's 4x400 was awesome, with Sanya Richards of the U.S. chasing down Russia in the final 50 meters. Sorry for the crappy video but was going nuts - watch her power to the finish:



















Women's 4x400...Sanya Richards was off somehwere else so too bad did not get all 4 of them. Pic of Jeremy Warnier getting ready for the 4x400, which the men dominated and set a new Olympic record - race was basically over after the first leg!




















A great, great finish to the 2008 Beijing Olympics Track and Field.

Day 4: Not getting old in the least

Sorry for the lack of actual "Beijing" pics...i figured I took enough/spoke about it enough in the blog entries from last year that it was not necessary this year. One thing I did want to note that I dont think I did before is big brother has done a remarkable job sweeping up the beggers, homeless, and ripoff DVD shops that were all over last summer. There used to be TONS of bootleg dvd shops all over the place but now the few that exist have gone "legit", i.e. non bootleg DVDs. Unless, you know to how to ask them...in which case, as what happened at one place, they opened a secret door behind a bookcase to get to a secret bootleg room! I love it.

Another packed day at the track, the main events being the 4x100 (with no U.S. teams in it, but a potential Jamaican world record with Bolt and his teammate former WR record holder Asafa Powell in it), and pole vault. I had pretty cool seats right in front of the long jump pit though, check out this video (I have a special affinity towards the long jump, was 8th grade conference champion!):


Men's 4x400 prelim video, which the US men predictably dominated (lets hope so since we got gold, silver, and bronze in the individual 400). Can you believe those seats???:



Did not get many pictures this night, but the Jamaican's killed the WR thanks to a dominating 3rd leg by Bolt. Bryan Clay of the U.S. won the Decathlon, which was extra cool b/c i was sitting directly behind his family - how much fun would that be to have a family member get a gold in the Olympics?? (Teresa and Angela, I still love you).

Day 3: China's National Sport Ping Pong, old Beijing University Stomping Grounds

I decided since I was in China I had to shell out the cash to watch basically the national sport of ping pong. They even built a stadium just for ping pong:


Since the game is so compact I decided to get fancy tickets and ended up like 3rd row!
It was a lot of fun - the chinese are really passionate about their table tennis, people were starting chants and cheers like people would do at an American football game. I cracked up whenever the players would walk in to get ready for their match, they would come strutting in led by their entourage of coaches, trainers, etc, sorta like how boxers walk to their fight, and the crowd would just explode. Check out the video:


It was pretty ridiculous how fast paced the game was...these guys are pretty athletic to have that sort of hand eye coordination and reaction time. Video:


Verdict? Well worth going. The other benefit was the ping pong stadium (yes, they built a stadium just for ping pong) was right next to Beijing university, which is where I studied/lived for almost 2 months last summer. Got to meet up with my good friend John and check out the old campus again...its very pretty:














So after a packed day at ping pong and visiting Beijing University, was on to the main event of track! A very good night of track with the main events the men's 400 meters, women's 200, and the men's 110 meter hurdles. Some more pics/video of the Olympic Green, including where they were filming the "Today show":


















The medal ceremony of the Men's 200...Usain definitely knows how to play to the crowd! So the previous night, the night he actually won, we all sang happy birthday to him but this night during the medal ceremony was his actual b-day, we sang it again - pretty cool 22nd birthday, to have 91,000 people sing to you:






Unfortunately I did not get many other pics of the actual events as the finals were so exciting I was just concentrating on watching. A 400 meter US sweep for the men, an easy 110 hurdle win for Robles (and heartbreaking not to have Liu Xiang in the race), and ANOTHER Jaimica victory in the women's 200. A disaster for the US though in the 4X100, both men's and womens, as both teams could not get the baton around and did not finish to make the final. Unacceptable.
Good video of a prelim finish to my old HS race the 800:
















Not sure why every picture I am holding my backpack straps. Unoriginal.

Day 2: This race by itself made the trip worth it

Usain Bolt's 200 meters was the most amazing race I have ever seen. I just remember watching Michael Johnson's 19.32 back at the '96 Olympics thinking that would not go down for 50 years. It took practically that long for MJ to bring it down twice that year. Well, fast forward to 2008, and now I truly do not think this 19.30 will go down for 50 years, unless Bolt does it again - no one is close. The weird part is a bunch of folks have run in the 19.6's, and Bolt and Johnson ran in the 19.3's...and there has been nothing in between! The electricity in the stadium was just unbelievable after it, i have never felt anything like that. ...91,000 people on their feet screaming on the biggest of stages...he entertained the crowd after, doing little dances and posing for the jumbotron, and then since his birthday was the next day we sang him happy birthday! Hands down one of the most amazing experiences of my life.
Some video from the jumbotron - I did not video the actual race b/c i was on my feet going crazy...




Had great seats again to see it, think i was 13th row for that night. Other races of note that day were the 5000 prelim and 800 prelims. I was looking forward the 5000 prelims since Bernard Lagat was trying to make up for not qualifying in the 1500. US 800 meter runner Christian Smith's parents and family were with our group, super nice people. He did not qualify for the final but I believe he is only 18-19 so he's got some Olympics ahead of him!
Pole vault - on this video its a chinese pole vaulter so the crowd goes nuts. I was quite impressed with the Chineses' patriotism.
















From the Olympic Green a new "7 -star" hotel with a giant TV screen on it. I know they do this 7 star deal in Dubai too, and I think its made up.














The aformentioned Graham "the Human Track Encyclopedia" from London. Taught him to use chopsticks!

Day 1: Tuesday August 19, 2008

I took a lot more pictures and video than i am going to post, these i think are just the more interesting ones. Also I know the formatting is kind of screwy but ah well.



Arrived from Shanghai in the morning, checked in the hotel and pretty much took off for the Bird’s Nest. We had to wait in line for about 20 minutes for metal detectors, bag search, etc...they were serious about security, which was good. And very orderly for the amount of people that they had to screen!



















Amazing Seats! For this night we were 3rd row, beginning of the backstretch. A whole line of Jamaicans right in front of us which was a lot of fun. Just amazing. Look my seats are so close i am holding the torch! (haha..stupid).















The first picture is the women's 5000 meter prelim. This race was especially cool b/c we were sitting next the mom of the gal in blue in 2nd place, Kara Goucher. Kara is the wife of Adam Goucher and was the bronze medalist in the 10k at the last World Champs. She made the final and ended up finishing 8th or 9th, a great job.
The second picture was the medal ceremony for the men's 400 hurdles - a U.S. medal sweep! This was the first medal ceremony i was there for and it was so cool to hear the Star Spangled banner at the Olympics. The flag were so perfectly flapping in the wind with the assistance of some giant fans.















One of the marquee events, the 1500 meters. Unfortunately none of the U.S. men qualified, but always a great race. Both pictures are great examples of how close we were to the track! The race did not disappoint and Rashid Ramzi ran about a perfect race one can run to get the win.

Stadium security so no-one bum rushes the track. See, I told you they did not joke around about security, this guy is stone-cold hardcore. Be my guess if you want to mess with that.

Beijing 2008: The Experience of a Lifetime!!!!!

Reflections:

What an unbelievable experience, truly a once in a lifetime kind of feel – something I was cautiously hoping it would be, but was worried about being disappointed. I was 6^th row for Usain Bolt’s 200 record!! (which I personally don’t believe will go do for a long long time…I think he may break is 100 record as soon as the end of this season).

After having lived in Beijing for nearly 2 months last summer (and feeling the unbelievable energy and excitement of the lead-up to the Olympics), I can’t believe how much more the city has changed in just one year. It seems like everything is new (or at least covered up with an Olympic themed wall) and relatively orderly. From the roads to the bright and shiny subway system, one can see certain advantages to a central planning political system.

The 7 days I was here…other than one day of rain, this is the clearest, best air and weather I have seen here. No joke, the 2 months I was hear I did not see this many clear days. Kudos to whatever the government has been doing (including taking half the cars of the road each day..which, unbelievably hasn’t seen to make a dent in the terrible traffic…still takes 30 mins to 1hr min to get anywhere. The subway is excellent is mostly brand new, but still takes many transfers to get anywhere).

Things definitely more expensive here than last year. Not just b/c the exchange rate went from like 7.5/1 USD to 6.8, but just general inflation – not unexpected at all. That did not stop me from getting 2 hour massages with all you can eat food for about $20 J (anything labor related is still cheeaaaap)

Need to shout out to the tour company I went with, Ludus tours, who do an amazing job. It is founded by Adam and Jessica Dailey, former runners at powerhouse University of Arkansas who also competed in the Olympic Trials. The company started out at the Athens Olympics as the partner to USA Track and Field, and therefore was basically the company that took care of most of the US Track team families. They have since expanded to include events such as the Running of the bulls, Oktoberfest, and the World Cup, but still had a lot of the athletes’ families go so it was super cool to hang with the parents of a lot of them – they must be so proud! Also just a bunch of cool folks I got to meet from all over the world – special shout out to Graham “the human track encyclopedia” from London who I had great track discussions with, but also excellent late night convos about society, politics, religion, etc.

I will certainly go with Ludus next time I do a tour like this, perhaps the Worlds next year in Berlin. Want to shout out to the other Ludus-ites that made this such as awesome trip like Diana, Stephanie, Ann, Melanie, Dan, and the whole crew. Here is one of my favorite picture I think of the trip, me with Dathan Ritzenhein, US Olympic Marathoner (9th place in a great time if i recall of around 2 hours, 12 minutes), former cult HS runner (he and Alan Webb were to put the US bank on the map for the longer distances), and all around nice guy. His family was with Ludus so he joined them at my table at the Beijing Duck closing dinner:

Sorry for the non-track fans if you are looking at this...some of this may become pretty boring fast. Also...I am a terrible photographer with a mediocre camera, so be prepared for some mediocre-to-crappy shots!

What its like to be a trophy house-wife, siiiiinnnggging in the rain...

I now know how it feels now to be a trophy-housewife, and as long as I don’t have to watch “The View”, “Oprah”, or “Dr. Phil”, it is definitely the greatest thing in the world. It started out with what I do everyday, in class from 8 to 12, but was lucky enough to watch movies I had never seen, “Mulan” and “Kung-Fu Hustle” in both classes (in Chinese). Mulan, as most Disney movies are, was great and Kung-Fu was highly entertaining. Anywho, lets say those two movies were proxies for watching Oprah and the like all morning; was grazing on snacks like Pocky the whole time too, which is like a proxy for bon-bons.

Then right after class went to get our cheap massages…not sure if I mentioned this before (and even if I did is tremendous enough to mention again) but the already cheap massages are even cheaper before 5 PM on M to Thurs…cheap as in 78 RMB (or about $10) for either an hour full body or 80 mins of foot reflexology + simple shoulder, back, and neck massage. That’s not all folks – that price also includes ALL YOU CAN EAT made-to-order food. If most of you know me, it is a losing proposition when you offer me all you can eat…

So anywho, got the 80 mins massage while I ate sliced fruit, dumplings, then afterwards sat in their lounge and ate an omlet with rice, more sliced fruit, and mushroom noodle soup. So essentially I stayed at this spa for over 2.5 hours getting a massage and eating…how about that? Then off to go shopping at the suit place as previously mentioned – picking up the final version of my custom, made-to-measure suit. How did it end up? See for yourself (you like the look with cargo shorts?):

Worth every penny of the 950 RMB I paid, or about $127 USD – less than the alteration jobs usually for the off the rack suits I buy in the states. Naturally, I then had the shopping bug and bought a made-to-measure custom 85% cashmere/15% wool with silk inner lining overcoat for 1300 RMB, or about $175 USD – will be going Saturday for my second fitting, will update on how it went. Okay, okay, did not stop there – bought a nice, custom made-to-measure dress shirt in a nice blue textured houndstooth pattern with French cuffs for…get ready…wait for it….$80 RMB or about $11 USD!!!! This is too much fun. The sad part is as quickly as China is growing, I bet it will already be a good deal more expensive in a year or two.

After that, came home and….went to eat again. So by 7 PM, all I had gotten done was:

1) Watched two movies

2) Ate dumplings and fruit while I got a foot massage

3) Ate more in a new-age lounge with Enya playing in the background (although not always like that…last time the TV had a pirated “Transformers” playing)

4) Shopped…a lot

5) Ate

On another note, after dinner, it was POURING….like, as Forrest Gump would say “big ‘ol fat rain”….monsoon type stuff. And even though the campus restaurant is only a 5 minute walk, when its raining so hard it feels so far away. It was too much fun running back to the dorm – I felt like a little kid again. We were splashing in the biggest puddles, laughing, jumping around…sometimes it’s the littlest things that are so much fun you know? The only gross part is the sewage system is not the greatest in Beijing, and therefore is overwhelmed very quickly = huge puddles, likely mixed with a lot of…sewage…yummy.

(Soaked down to the bone...too much fun)

Okay…time to fill up the bubble bath, pop in some Kenny-G, have a couple of Xanax, and have some alone time with me, the new Cosmo magazine, and a bottle of red wine…