Live from Beijing (Part 3)

Finally, here's a list of interesting things/insights/happenings in the games and around the city.

-I was impressed with the level of play in the women's basketball games. Entering the first basketball game, Russia vs. South Korea, I mistakenly thought that women's basketball was a joke. However, all the players were very good ball handlers, played good defense, and had range from the field.
-The exception to the aforementioned good play was the Belarus point guard, #4. I'm sorry if I'm being a little harsh, but she was by far the worst player on the court in both Belarus games that we saw. I have no idea why she was starting, since her stat line for both games was something like 1-5 from the field, with 6 turnovers and maybe 2 assists. Against South Korea, she almost singlehandedly allowed South Korea back into the game; in the second half, she bounced the ball off her foot out of bounds when she was taking it up the court and repeatedly dribbled into corners, either losing the ball or stepping out of bounds. She also had a strange, out-of-control style of dribbling and did not contribute anything to Belarus (her passes were all hand-offs or throws around the perimeter) except for one breakaway, two-handed layup that she threw off the backboard and somehow got to go in.
-Diana Taurasi, an American guard, and Isabel Sanchez, a Spanish player, were mixing it up during the U.S. vs. Spain game. They had already been exchanging pushes and shoves early in the 2nd quarter, and after Sanchez was called for carrying, the two got in each other's faces, but no technicals were called. The head referee did bring the two over in a huddle to speak to them, during which Taurasi strangely placed her hand on the ref's hindside for about 15 seconds.
-An Italian volleyball player, #11, was very insistent on having the floor around him clean. After almost every point, he called in the blue-shirted volunteers to wipe the court with their towels, which took about 15 seconds and became rather annoying by the 3rd and 4th sets.
-The Brazilian libero, Sergio, appeared to be high on Red Bull for the entire match. He carried out huge Tiger fist pumps after every point that Brazil won, and generally pranced around the court when he was in and around the bench when Brazil was serving. I do admit, though, that he was very entertaining to watch.
-The American weightlifter, Chad Vaughn, had a very long pre-lift routine, in which he performed a quirky head shake that actually made the crowd laugh at him. Right before he lifted the barbell, he tilted his head to the side and sort of wagged it a couple of times. The crowd was surprised the first time, but chuckled at him every other time.
-Erkand Qerimaj, the Hungarian lifter, looked to both sides with a smirk on his face and nodded while holding his finish in the clean & jerk. The crowd absolutely loved it, and he went on to take a couple of bows and wave.
-Ever since it rained for the entire day on the 11th, the skies in Beijing have been blue, with few clouds and no smog. It also poured again on the 14th.
-We were fortunate enough to be able to play a round of golf at Pine Valley Golf Club, on the morning of the 14th before the rain. The private golf clubs in China are apparently just as nice as the clubs in America; in the clubhouse, there was a board with tacks that implored the members to vote on the color design for the club's private plane (the initiation fee at Pine Valley is $500,000)
-Some gas stations in China don't allow people to fill up during thunderstorms. For some reason, the employees at the station that we were at said that it was dangerous.
-The organizers liked playing music and showing animations on the video screens during every break in play. We heard everything from Linkin Park to Juanes to Chinese pop. In several events, we also saw an interesting message on the screen, urging the crowd: "Let's do the Mexican wave" (see the picture).














-The toilets in a lot of public places in Beijing are just holes in the ground. It's rather strange.
-The "Water Cube" swimming arena isn't even a cube. I'm not even sure if it's a square in length and width, and it's definitely not as tall as it is lengthwise on either side.
-We witnessed more interesting driving around the city. On a one-way, three lane road out of a train station, we saw a taxi driving slowly down the right hand lane...in the other direction. We also drove past another car on a one-way road going in the opposite direction (I'm pretty sure we were going the legal way).
-We visited a large shopping center called Silk Street/Pearl Market in the center of the city that sold basically everything imaginable for 1/10 of the normal price. I think most of it was fake, but we did manage to buy a Swiss army knife for 4 dollars, a Breitling/Bentley watch for 25 dollars, and a lot of clothing at extremely low prices. We also saw members of several Olympic teams there, including some Russian, Italian, and Jamaican athletes.
-Finally, I have to reiterate that the locals are all very kind and friendly. At the U.S. vs. Spain basketball game, a woman in the row in front of us heard us speaking English and turned around and offered us an American flag. In general, everyone we have talked to has greeted us with a smile and treated us kindly.

Sorry about the time difference between posts. I had some problems with the internet connection.

Only a week of games left...enjoy the Olympics while they last!

Live from Beijing (Part 2)

It is now the evening of Day 9 at the Beijing Olympics. I know I promised to post earlier, but we have been very busy for the last week or so. Here's a quick recap of the events that we have seen.

8/10: Swimming

Since all the swims were prelims, they weren't that exciting, but we did get to experience the Water Cube. It lived up to all our expectations; the scales on the outside changed color every several minutes, and there was even water running down all the interior walls into a large continuous pond. We also saw Michael Phelps in the 200 meter freestyle heats and Natalie Coughlin in the 100 meter backstroke heats. Throughout the heats, a lot of Olympic records were broken and a couple of world records were set as well, but the most exciting moment was when the 4 x 100 freestyle U.S. relay team set a world record (yes, it was smashed the day after, but it was still impressive considering it was the U.S.'s B team).

8/11: Women's Basketball

We watched two preliminary games: Russia vs. South Korea and Belarus vs. Latvia. Russia won over South Korea 77-72, but I thought that they had been outplayed for the entire game. South Korea was called for traveling 3 times in the final 4 minutes, which killed their chances of pulling off an upset. Even though Russia was much taller, South Korea played really good defense (I think Russia had 25 turnovers). However, Russia shot something like 72% from the field, so I guess they kind of deserved to win. Belarus won the other game 79-57. It was close in the first half, but Belarus blew it open in the third quarter. The game got pretty ugly in the fourth quarter with the substitutes in.

8/12: Men's Volleyball

We saw two games again (one ticket buys you two games): the U.S. vs. Italy and Brazil vs. Serbia. The U.S. won in four sets over Italy; they lost the first set but won the next three. An American player, Reid Priddy, was very impressive. He was probably 2 or 3 inches shorter than the other hitters on the team, but he had the most kills and might have had the most blocks. Brazil also won in four sets over Serbia, and also lost the first set but won the rest. Neither team was great at blocking, but Brazil played better defense and also had some powerful outside hitters.

8/13: Weightlifting

We watched the men's 69-77 kg event. I'm not exactly sure how it worked, since we thought it was a preliminary, but then when we looked at the results in the evening, all of the scores that we saw were in the results for the final. Anyhow, we apparently saw the worser of the two groups, since Erkand Qerimaj, the winner of the group, was 13th in the final results. There was an American, Chad Vaughn, but he had a DNF after he couldn't lift 182 kg in the clean & jerk on any of his 3 tries. In addition, Janos Baranyai, a Hungarian lifter, unfortunately dislocated his elbow in the clean & jerk. Thankfully, the injury did not jeopardize his career.

8/15: Women's Basketball

We saw another 2 women's prelim games: the U.S. vs. Spain and Belarus vs. South Korea. The U.S. won handily over Spain, 93-55. It was actually only 39-34 at halftime; the U.S. coach put in the subs after Spain was down 17-4, but Spain fought and climbed back. The second half was a blowout, though, with the U.S. hitting their jumpers and playing tough defense. In the second game, Belarus defeated South Korea 63-53. It wasn't a pretty game. I think Belarus shot around 32% from the field and South Korea might have shot under 30%. South Korea also had trouble defending the much taller Belarus forwards and centers.

8/16: Men's Baseball

Yesterday, we watched Cuba defeat Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) 1-0. It was a pitcher's duel; the lone run of the game was a solo home run in the 7th inning, after which the Taiwan starter was taken out. Taiwan only managed 4 hits, one of them being a 2-out single in the top of the 9th. Cuba wasn't much better offensively, only getting 5 hits themselves. The only extra-base hit of the game was the home run.

We didn't watch anything on the 14th or today; instead, we visited the Forbidden City and the Great Wall, respectively. I didn't think the Forbidden City was that interesting, since all we saw were antique buildings with thrones in the middle. However, the Great Wall was much more exciting. We visited the Badaling section of the Wall, about 50 km north of Beijing. The wall was open to access in both directions from the entrance, and we arbitrarily picked the one with less people. We ended up walking a very hilly 2 miles to the end of where visitors are allowed (there was one set of stairs that probably went up about 18 feet vertically in 10 feet of horizontal distance, with steps right in front of your face all the way up). The views, though, of the surrounding mountains were exhilarating.

I decided to split this up into two posts, so see the above post for tidbits on the games and on life around the city.

Live from Beijing

I am currently in Beijing for the Olympics; today is my third day in the city. I'll try to post about once every three days about the happenings here. Yesterday, we were able to watch two women's soccer preliminary games: Sweden vs. Argentina and China vs. Canada. These games were held in Tianjin, a large city about 100 miles southeast of Beijing. Chinese fans filled the venue, Tianjin Olympic Center Stadium, although there were some scattered foreign spectators. The stadium, with a seating capacity of 65,000, had an announced crowd of 56,000 people for the China vs. Canada game. This large crowd was rather unusual for a preliminary game, but the Chinese fans poured in to watch their home team, zealously chanting and clapping for the Chinese squad and unreservedly booing the Canadians. The Sweden vs. Argentina game was first, at 5:00 pm, but we were only able to watch the second half, since all of the train tickets from Beijing to Tianjin were already sold out for the earlier trips. Sweden dominated the second half (they probably did the same in the first half also). They controlled the ball for literally 75% of the half and won 1-0. Sweden could have easily scored 3 or 4 times, but the Argentinian goalie had some nice saves, and the Swedes also hit the crossbar several times.

The game that the crowd was waiting for followed at 7:45 pm. Raucous Chinese fans cheered loudly when their national team was introduced and also gave the loudest rendition of the national anthem that I had ever heard. However, they were soon silenced by the Canadian team, which outplayed China for the entire game (China was lucky to salvage a 1-1 tie). The Canadians had three times as many shots on goal (12-4) and also had many more legitimate scoring chances. While the Chinese capitalized on probably their only real opportunity of the night, a striker breakaway, the Canadians hit the post and also barely missed a couple of other shots from inside the box. The Chinese fans knew that their team was outmatched and were not too dejected with the tie.

Some interesting tidbits about the games and about life around the city:

-the smog was pretty bad on the 8th, the day of the opening ceremonies, but the air was a little bit clearer yesterday, and some blue could even be spotted in the skies
-there were thunderstorms and showers this morning, but most of it has subsided by now (it's currently 10:46 am in China)
-the drivers in China are somewhat reckless; the lane markers in the roads are useless, since not that many people follow them
-there are also some strange traffic rules (U-turns are allowed on red lights)
-the locals are very friendly and most of the volunteers/workers for the Olympics speak good English
-there was an NBC cameraman filming at the ticket pick-up building
-the subways and trains in and around the city are very efficient; it only took 30 minutes for us to go 100 miles from Beijing to Tianjin (the train reached speeds of 350 km/h)
-the food choices in Beijing are becoming more westernized; we spotted a bunch of McDonald's, KFC, and Pizza Hut joints

Okay, that's it for now, but check back in 2 or 3 days for another update from Beijing. Let's hope for better weather and some exciting games.