Aug. 12, 2008
Hey Everyone! We hope you've been keeping up with our weeks long trip in Beijing. We haven't entitled any of our past blogs, however we feel today's encounter deserves a special title. "It's a Buckeye World"
Today has been one of those go with the flow kind of days. We started our morning about 7:00 am with the breakfast buffet at the Days Cafe. Matt and I had a mini plan set for our trial run to Olympic Green, however we didn't really know what we were getting into for the day.
We left our hotel about 8:00 am and headed to the subway station located about 4 blocks away from our hotel. When we got there we purchased our tickets, 2 Yuan for each ride (approximately 32 cents), from an automatic machine. We headed on the line 5 and transferred to the line 10, which took us directly to the Olympic Green. The subway ended up being very easy to navigate. The subway had a form of written and spoken English, which told us exactly what was happening at that given time. We also met two very nice women from California, who told us about their experience with the opening ceremonies, as well as the swimming & diving events. It made us VERY jealous, but we knew our time would come soon enough!
Once we arrived at the Olympic Green we walked around the outskirts of the venues. We were not able to enter the Olympic Park unless we had proof of a ticket for that specific day, so instead, we walked around the venues on the east side and took pictures of our Olympic experience.
As we explored the city, we ran into an English speaking man who was selling tickets for handball. Of course, handball wasn't our first choice to watch, but it got us into the park. For a small amount we purchased the tickets and headed to the entrance. We walked through security fairly easily and headed to the venue to get a first hand experience of handball. We found our seats just in time to watch the half-time show. The show pretty much consisted of 20 Chinese dancers & the Olympic mascots dancing around the court to Mylie Cyrus. I had to question the form of music they played, but I guess that's what pumps up the Brazilian & Croatian teams... JOKING!
As the half-time show ended, the players came to the court and warmed up by passing the ball to one another. Finally, the half-time show ended and the "real" show began! The Croatian team appeared to be much taller and stronger than the Brazilian team. In the time period that we were there the Croatian team scored about 15 points where the Brazilian team scored about 4 points. It was a blow out: Croatia 33, Brazil 14.
We left the handball in hopes to find the natatorium. The park seemed to be split in two sections an east side and a west side. The handball venue was on the west side, where the natatorium and Olympic Stadium were on the east side. We exited the park and headed for the direction of the stadium. As we walked, Matt and I continued to take pictures of the venues, the flame, the Olympic rings, and goofy pictures of ourselves...okay maybe it was just goofy pictures of me, but I'm okay with that!!!
We finally found the entrance to the east side of the park. As mentioned earlier, we couldn't get into the park unless we had tickets, so we decided to turn around and head back to the subway.
We ended up finding the subway station and headed back to the hotel. The rest of the evening seemed to be pretty uneventful, we just relaxed and soaked in the wonderful experience.
Today we will be heading to the National Aquatic Center to watch the Americans win an Olympic Gold! I don't think we've ever been so excited!
We will give you an update soon! Enjoy & Stay Tuned...
Matt & Wendy
