August 2008 Archives

This is my last post on the Olympics, and frankly, it's been great writing for you guys. I've really enjoyed writing this blog, as it's helped me do things I wouldn't normally do--like interview athletes, trade pins, learn about the mascots and the torch relay. This enhanced my Olympic experience, too! The last Olympic event I went to was the men's beach volleyball.  The U.S. team got the gold medal, and I got to see them raise the American flag and sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in the middle of Beijing! What a great way to end this Olympics!

Another highlight was getting to see Nadal and Federer play on the same day. It has inspired me to work hard on my tennis and I will try out for my middle school tennis team again this year (I didn't make it last year).  I also learned how a lot of different sports were played & judged (canoe/kayak slalom, beach volleyball, badminton, diving, etc.). Being able to watch a few events in person helped me appreciate how hard the athletes have to work before and during the Olympics.

Along with watching Olympics, many people go to see the venues and/or trade pins. Trading pins at the Olympics started at the 1896 Athens Olympics between participants, but really didn't become popular until the early 1900s. Pin trading has also been more and more exciting as more and more pins are released. Plus, it's a great way to meet people and have fun at the same time. There's a pin trading center sponsored by Coca Cola in the Olympic Village, too (but the general public can't go in there).

There are many types of pins and they also vary from Olympics to Olympics. The types of pins are quite varied, from pins made by sponsors, to venue pins, to pins with the Olympic Mascots on them. When I went to the men's final beach volleyball match on Friday, I saw these guys trading pins during the break between the bronze medal game and the gold medal game. One guy was from NBC and he was telling the other guy about their special pins, like which ones were sponsor pins, client pins, etc. That's part of the bargaining for pins.  One guy even had pins from the Moscow Summer Olympics (1980). 

Just like in trading Pokémon cards, the rarer the pin is, the more it is worth!  If the pins have moving parts (like a door or a spinning part) then it is worth more, too. I also found out that most people wanted pins with either the Olympic Rings or the logo for that Olympic Game on them. I just had ones with an American flag and a Chinese flag on it. Some collectors will sell you pins, too. I bought my Road Runner one for 20 RMB (US$3.00).

I have just traded pins a couple of times—at the beach volleyball game, and once at a party when I met Gabe Gardner and he gave me a USA volleyball pin when I gave him a China souvenir as thank you for my interview. My mom traded and got me pins from a nice manager at the Coke pavilion, with a silver medalist fencer and the USA diving team organizer. You can see my pin collection on my Olympic shirt.

My parents bought me one for every event that we got to see (those cost about 25 RMB (US$3.75). My brother has a collection, too, but he didn't like collecting pins as much as I did.

So if you ever go to an Olympics, don't forget to bring some pins to trade with.  Maybe we'll see each other trading pins at the London 2012 Olympics!

Being an Olympic athlete is one of the highest honors bestowed upon an athlete by his/her country. They usually are number one in their sport in their country. Most of the athletes participating in the Olympics also participate in other competitions, like Rafael Nadal, who also plays in all the major tennis tournaments around the world.

In Beijing, the athletes live in their own Olympic village. Their family members can't stay there and most family members either live in rented apartments or with friends in the city. The Olympic Village is on the Olympic shuttle bus route to the tennis venue and it was fun to see how they had decorated their sections with their country's flags on the balconies.  

With world-class athletes comes world-class catering, also known as McDonalds (well, for this Olympics). There are five McDonald's total in the Olympic Green, two for spectators, two for athletes and one for the press. See how crowded it was at this McDonald outlet.

We are not supposed to bring in any food or drink into the Olympic sites.  Here's a list of foods that I have eaten at Olympic events (My Olympic Diet): DRY instant noodles, hot dog in a bun (pig in a blanket)—covered with ketchup on the outside, bread with corn and an unknown white sauce, a muffin, Snickers bars, plain butter cookies, ice cream cones & a popsicle. There are plenty of options for drinks—Coke, Sprite, Fanta, iced tea, beer (for the adults) all for 5 RMB (US$0.75), but good food is hard to come by it seems.  

Here's a picture of the complete menu. At the venues, a lot of these items might not be offered--like I've never seen sandwiches at any of the events I went to, but my Mom said she ate a sandwich and some sweet popcorn (the Chinese put sugar, not salt on their popcorn) at a Basketball match.  We've learned to eat a big meal before we head out (usually two hours before the event starts) and I bring my own granola bars in my bag!

There are two McDonald's on the Olympic Green, but the lines are so long that you have to wait over 30 minutes to buy anything.  After our third visit today in the rain, we finally managed to buy lunch at McD's.  Those hamburgers never tasted so good!  Found out that athletes have two McDonald's just for them, and it's all free—more on that next time as I write on the life of an athlete at the Olympics!

Usually, most sporting events rely heavily on cameras, i.e. to judge what happened in an event. In addition to professional photographers, the Olympics also has automated cameras.  We saw this one that runs on a rail to film athletes running around the track. 

Another example is the automated camera used in critical spots & turns to film the canoe/kayak slalom.  The Hawk-Eye is a camera only used in tennis and cricket to film where the ball hits the ground.  You see it every time the player challenges the line judge's call. (The Hawk-Eye is making its first appearance at the Olympics this year).

There are also cameras that are suspended above the venue and can move back and forth on wires. These take the aerial shots.  In fact, the tallest building on the Olympic Green is the BOB (Beijing Olympic Broadcasting) tower for the moving camera. We saw professional photographers with BOB, POOL and PHOTO vests on. At the diving events, there's even a camera that gets dropped when the divers start, so it can film them going down. The cameraman has to use a pulley to pull the camera back up to the top after each dive.

I, personally, have never been in a bird's nest! Well, that was until five days ago. We got tickets to the second day of athletics. Even though it's not our favorite event, we just wanted to see what the Chinese National Stadium or the "Bird's Nest" was like.

 
First, we took the subway to the Olympic Green stop.  See how crowded it was at the exit of the subway!

There is always something for the crowd to watch at Olympic events. My mom took this video of some half-time hoop work.

 

Mascots dance around to music a lot during the Olympic events. Watch the plastic mascots break some moves in this video.




For more mascot mania, watch the furry mascots rock out in this video.

On Wednesday, August 13th, one of my dad's friends surprised us with four tickets for the tennis match that day. Since my dad had to work, one of my aunts, who was visiting, went with me, my brother and my mom. My mom got instructions on how to go to the tennis venue from her friend who had gone before. So this time, we took a taxi to the Olympic subway line. Once we got to the transfer point for the Olympic Green, we got out of the station and took a No. 2 Olympic bus that took us directly to the Olympic Green Tennis Venue (it was really crowded & squishy though). We then went through security and had our tickets checked. In all, it took us around one and a half hours to get there, compared to the three and a half hours last time. It was overcast and humid, but no rain!

Rafael Nadal was playing against Igor Andreev on Court 1 for the first match. He's my mom's & brother's favorite, so we went there first, even though it was not in Center Court. The tickets we had came with a grounds pass, which allowed us to watch any match on any of the courts. The match between Nadal and Andreev was amazing because it was free seating and our seats were only about 50 feet away from the court! I have never seen a big tennis match in person and it felt like we could almost reach out and touch the players. We had watched the entire Nadal vs. Federer match at Wimbledon on TV, but this was so totally more awesome than Wimbledon (pardon my grammar). Nadal's serve looked so much harder once you got close up (up to 197 km/hour). Plus, you could see the ball rotating really fast when he hit it. We could also see that the players were really sweaty with the heat and humidity. That must make it a lot harder to play well.

I have been out in a canoe and a kayak before and I thought that this would be like kayaking on a lake. Well I was really wrong about that. You see, this wasn't any ordinary course; this was a Level 5 course with rapids, drops/falls and all that stuff.

Now I can truthfully say that your Olympic blogger has finally attended an Olympic event!  One of my dad's friends gave us two tickets for the first round of tennis. The event started on Sunday, Aug 10, 2008--two days after the Opening Ceremony (wasn't it cool how Li Ning lit the cauldron!?!)  As the event was on another even day and we have an odd license plate on our car--it meant more public transport.

That would be fine, except for the fact that half way through the trip it started to rain. We were not sure if they would cancel the games for that day, but we decided to go and give it a try. My dad had printed out some instructions of how to get to the tennis courts; we took a shuttle bus downtown, and then rode on the new Olympic subway line to the stop by the Bird's Nest.

We walked up the steps to get out of the subway and then we saw it. It was a huge mass of people, and beyond the teeming mass of people were two security tents! It turned out that you had to go through a security checkpoint before you are allowed to ride on the Olympic Green Subway line. So we lined up and waited a looong time.

Today is the big day of the Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing.  My family is all excited about watching it on TV (we could only get one ticket to the opening ceremony, and decided we'd rather watch it together at home together).

Everyone knows that these are called the Beijing Olympics. But that's not all. Since Beijing doesn't have enough stadiums and facilities to host all the events themselves, they've enlisted the help of other cities. These cities are called the "co-host cities" The co-host cities are: Qingdao ("q" is pronounced like a "ch" in English), Hong Kong, Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenyang and Qinhuangdao.

Qingdao, is going to hold the sailing events, as it is a good to place to sail because of its location on the ocean. The equestrian events will be held in Hong Kong. Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenyang and Qinhuangdao will hold soccer matches that Beijing can't have played there.

In my previous post, I've already told you about the equestrian events in Hong Kong, so let me tell you a little bit about the other Olympic co-host cities.

Qingdao is a beautiful place with beaches, mountains and the ocean. It also has a seaport and naval base.

Tianjin used to be Beijing's seaport in the time of the emperors.  It has many foreign settlements there with lots of interesting non-Chinese looking buildings. It's also very close to Beijing so if you have time, you should check it out. They just finished a high speed train so spectators can get from Beijing to Tianjin easily.

Shanghai is the economic center of China, just like Beijing is the political center of China. Shanghai is also another seaport and has many remnants of Chinese history (i.e. The Bund and Foreign Concessions).

Shenyang is the capital of Liaoning Province, with a railroad station and airport. The city has maintained its history throughout the years and the government is trying to turn the city greener.

Qinhuangdao is another seaport as it borders Bohai Bay. It also boasts the eastern most part of the Great Wall.

I'll write more when I've actually attend a canoeing event next week!

During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the equestrian events will be held in Hong Kong. Now, the air distance from Beijing to Hong Kong is about 1230 miles (1979 kilometers)--that's almost as far away as New York City is from Miami, Florida!

The reason they decided to hold the equestrian events in Hong Kong is because the Hong Kong Jockey Club has lots of experience in taking care of horses. However, part of the complication for these Olympics is getting the horses to Hong Kong. The horses used in these events are really expensive (over a million U.S. dollars) and they are treated like athletes. Horses aren't exactly stupid, so when they are loaded on a plane, they sense danger and need to be calmed down.

The Mascots for the Beijing Olympics are good luck dolls (called "Fu-wa" in Chinese) modeled after famous Chinese animals and things important to Chinese culture. The designer was Mr. Han Meilin. (Han is his surname and Meilin is his first name. In China, you write your last name first!)  He picked five because of the five Olympic Rings and because Chinese astrology has five elements (gold, wood, water, fire, and earth). The Beijing Olympics now holds the Olympic record for having the most mascots.



The first mascot is called "BeiBei". She represents a fish and water, which in Chinese culture meaning you would have prosperity and a good harvest. BeiBei is good at water sports (for obvious reasons) like swimming and water polo.

The other day, I had a dentist's appointment on an even day, but the car we had had an odd number license plate, which meant that I couldn't go into town with the car. (China has started an odd-even license plate rotation to cut down on pollution.) So this meant that I had to use public transportation, which I did. Since I had a couple of hours, some money, and a camera, I decided to snap some pictures with my dad and pick up some Olympic tickets for my aunt and cousins.