High: we slept so wonderfully! once we got to sleep :) it's amazing how last night neither of us could construct sentenses or formulate simple plans for dinner. sleep is such a lovely thing.
Low: smog. [see below]
AHA: the Olympics are EVERYWHERE!! And always, always in high def :) Seriously, you can't walk around without seeing a screen full of CCTV's coverage. It's focused mostly on the Chinese teams, obviously, so we've seen weightlifting (whoa.) badmiton and women's volleyball & basketball. They are so very proud!
We arrived. and that was good. Fortunately, they were no screaming kids BETWEEN us...however, there was a motherless howler that posted up in the aisle 2 rows ahead of us. For a good 30 minutes, this poor child lamented something. we're still unclear what she was upset about, who she belonged to and why she chose us. we were honored.
the flight: turns out you get 5 movies, which is pretty sweet. our selections inlcuded Kong Fu Panda -- how apprapo (or something), Made of Honor & 3 other selections that were bad. Amy didn't sleep, but decided to 'meditate' with her eye mask, neck pillow and iPod. Alden was out like a light. thank you sweet melatonin. 12 hours later... we arrived. There were Olympic athletes on the flight as well as spouses. Aparently, the spouses don't automatically get tickets, they're asked to order them. Which sucks, right? Most of the people on the plane were headed to track and field events. In the end, there were more non-white people than we had originally observed.
We landed in Beijing in their brand new Int'l Terminal (Number3) which is the largest terminal in the world. It was really quite cool and actually pretty quiet. Customs and immigration went smoothly and there was even someone to pick us up!
Amy says, "smog". and there's a lot of it. we have seen the sun. but it looks really weird. we have seen the bird's nest --- it's about a 5 minute walk from our hotel -- but can't get into the olypmic green area, unless we have that day's event tickets. So we won't be able to see it until we return on the 20th (we're traveling to Xian and Guillin before then).
My Chinese is horrible. it's broken up english and choice phrases like "we're starving to death" which are actually recieved quite well. :)
the hotel is pretty sweet. we're typing this from a wirless keyboard. looking at our 52 inch high def TV/Monitor screen (we are assumung the internet is free???). last night we managed to stay up until 8:15pm Beijing time = 5:15am Cali time...unfortunaly, our guides for today's adventures didn't start calling until about 10pm last night. and didn't stop until somewhere around 11. at one point i asked amy if we could take the phone off the hook, she said no. it's all good though, coordinating getting us around the city and to the events is certainly no easy feat.
today we're off to the white water complex outside of the city for the men and women's kayaking finals :) and tomorrow we're to one of the oldest and unchanged neighbordhoods in the city to visit a traditional Chinese house called a Hutong. And there will be rickshaws...to haul our fat american asses around. perfect.
Hanoi Opera House Vietnam
3 months ago
