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…

"The Trip"

So, I know I went to Hong Kong first, but the Taiwan trip was more important so will report on that first. As a few of you know, my HK trip was originally supposed to be from Thursday the 26^th to Sunday the 29^th so I would have sufficient time to do my company visits as well see as much of HK as I could. My plane ticket was booked and then I got the report that my grandmother in Taiwan was having some surgery for a pretty serious ailment. Unfortunately, since this set of grandparents live so far away, its sad to say I have probably only seen them 10 times give or take (with the bulk of those them visiting the States when I was much younger). I have only been to Taiwan two other times, one when I was three and then two years ago when my grandfather was having some major surgery as well. So while passing through, my sister thought it would be a great idea for me to go to Taiwan while I was in Hong Kong since one has to go via HK anyways (cannot fly directly to Taiwan from mainland for a whole host of reasons…check it out on Wikipedia or something if interested). It made all the sense in the world, and as a bonus it is quite close – only about an hour and 15 mins by plane. So I ended up changing my return flight to Monday the 30^th and got a ticket to Kaohsiung, Taiwan for Saturday morning to Monday morning. My grandparents actually live in Taipei, but the surgery was getting down in Kaohsiung (not sure if it has something to do with that my mom’s little brother is a doctor down there).

While it made my trip to HK only about 36 hours, it was totally worth it – the happiness my grandparents had was worth all of the effort and more. My grandma had her surgery Tuesday and fortunately was looking great when I got there – she was talking and sitting up and just starting to eat some solid food, and grandpa was so happy too. My mom also arrived there the same day I did, about 2 hours earlier, so that worked out so well.

My uncle, aunt, their 9 and 11 year old daughters, and their dog Pee-Pee were very gracious in hosting us, driving us around to run errands and even taking us out to a delicious dim-sum place for dinner – that’s right, they had dim-sum for dinner! Anywho, I with I could have stayed longer as these opportunities will not be available forever. At least if I work in Hong Kong it will just be a hop skip and a jump. Unfortunately my other grandparents both passed away years ago, and I wish I had been old enough/mature enough when they were alive for me to truly appreciate them.

(the dog Pee-Pee...he is kinda funny since he answers to Chinese and does not understand any English).

As a side note, Kaohsiung (2^nd largest city in Taiwan with about 1.5 million) is like LA or something – its weird, it is very urban feeling when you are walking around because its all mixed use buildings with retail on the bottom and housing/offices on top, but there are no real tall buildings and the city seems pretty spread out. I would estimate most buildings were no more than ten stories, so it’s a sort of odd feeling to be walking around in an urban environment with all low-rises and no real “central” area I could figure out.

Now, onto HK – the visit really was amazing! I got in fairly late on Thursday night and right away it was a weird adjustment (lets call weird #1) because all of the sudden everyone could speak English! A weird juxtaposition in my head with all the Asian faces that normally only speak Mandarin in Beijing while in HK it’s a lot of Asian faces that speak perfect English. Took the superb train into the city, which along with the airport train in Copenhagen is the most impressive in its speed, efficiency, cleanliness, etc etc. Every city should have something like that. I then took a cab from the train station to my cab where I had weird #2 b/c everything is right hand drive (HK was ruled by the English up till 1997). I don’t know if its because I haven’t been to London for like over ten years, but I had a momentary moment of panic as we were driving around up the ramp from the train and I thought we were going to slam into someone head on.

(the HK airport is kind of cool because one side is bordered by mountains and the other side is bordered by water/mountains...wonder if its a pain in the ass to land when weather is crap)

After getting to the hotel – weird #3 – pedestrians actually follow traffic signals here! I’m used to whatever goes in Beijing and here we are, waiting to cross a street with absolutely NO cars on it, but we are all standing there because the cross signal said don’t walk – such a weird feeling after following the locals no matter if it is green light, red light, yellow light, walk, don’t walk, bus coming, etc.

Stayed at a nice and reasonably prices Ramada and then woke up for day of meetings. And let me tell you, they went great! I was fortunate enough to meet with some great people and I really felt like I hit it off with them and got a much better idea about what finance/real-estate in HK is all about. The verdict? I-banking looking for more local native level speakers while the buy-side is still very foreign dominated English speakers so looks like we know where I will be focusing…HK mission accomplished. The buy-side shop in particular was especially impressive and the Director I was speaking to made me really feel like I might have a chance there – I will be focusing my summer/full-time efforts there as the culture there seemed to fit me very well.

(Hong Kong at night is really gorgeous....the pic on the left is Hong Kong from across the bay in Kowloon and the 2nd pic is Kowloon itself...incredible pics courtesy of Andy)

Then my friend Andy and his girlfriend Fion hosted me and showed me around the city, and they did an INCREDIBLE job. I met Andy last June at my finance fellowship orientation week in New York City and he is a great guy.

After my last meeting I went to Andy’s office (also his g-friend’s) and they took my on the ferry across the way to Kowloon. It was a beautiful night with a bright sky, and the HK skyline really is something else - like nowhere else. We walked around a very upscale mall there until our 8:30 reservation at an incredibly delish Cantonese style restaurant with a breathtaking view overlooking the bay.

(Real pictures of the food...nummy....)

(As an aside, let me you the Hong Kong-ians (?) love their malls – the whole
central area of HK where all the companies and banks are are literally connected by over the street walkways with mini malls in each one, and a lot of Central is also connected by underground malls combined with the very robust, clean, and fast subway system the MTR. I suppose its good so you can have a constant dose of A/C if you are walking building to building, not mention if it rains?). They then took me to a night market called Mong Kok which looks a lot like what you see on TV a lot when they show Hong Kong, with lot street vendors selling shady merchandise and booths selling foods. Did not get any fake handbags for myself but did buy a sweet pair of headphones/hands free phone kit (my phone has MP3) for only about $7, which would normally cost about $30 in the states.

They then took me to the nut-so main nightlife area called Long Kwai, which is the only place I think thus far that really reminds me of Bourbon street in New Orleans. It was like 2 AM and the streets were packed with loud music coming from everywhere. I was pooped so we ended up just grabbing a drink at a laid back Russian bar that had a cool giant icebox you could go into and take shots.

(The icebox in the Russian bar)

Andy was gracious enough to let me crash at his place, so we were back there by about 3 AM…slept at around 3:30, then up at 6 to catch my flight to Taiwan. Andy and Fion, just wanted to give a shout-out for showing such a great time!

The one thing – OMG was it HOT there….temperature wise in the mid 90’s, but the humidity – oh the humidity! The body depends on sweat to evaporate in order to keep cool, so when its that hot and that humid your body is just miserable. It did not help I was running around all day in a suit and tie (since did not get to Andy’s till 3:30 am, was wearing the same dress-up clothes from 8 AM to 3:30 AM! Talk about ring around the collar). The good part is everyone uses ridiculous air conditioning – like, so cold I was glad I was wearing a suit and tie to keep warm. Oh well – better than the alternative I guess, but sounds like a good recipe for a cold or something?

Verdict on the weekend? Was pretty pricy, but worth every penny both personally and professionally - lets see if I end up there...