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Beijing - Day 2 - 8/12

Tuesday morning, Michelle and I decided that after breakfast, we'd go back to the Bird's Nest and see if we could buy some tickets. This time we got around a little better because of our trial and error the previous night.

On our way to the stadium, we met a lady selling kayak/canoe tickets for that afternoon. Well, I love kayaking and canoeing and of course we scooped those up right away. My bargaining skills and previous experience with Atlanta scalpers paid off and we actually got the ticket for only twice face value (200 RMB each, about $30). I was excited and Michelle was excited because I love the sport and she knew nothing about it. It was also a beautiful day and what better way to enjoy a day than to sit by a river, under the sun and watch some olympics.

We continued to the stadium and ran in to easily 100 people selling tickets to every event. Unfortunately, most tickets were way too expensive. Basketball tickets were going, at the lowest, for 4,000 RMB (about $600) to see either China or America play. Needless to say, I don't think I'll be watching any basketball games. We didn't buy any other tickets because there wasn't anything else they had that we really wanted to see for the prices they wanted so we headed back for the hostel to rest up before the olympics.

On the way back, we stopped at a little Chinese restaurant down the block from our hostel. I love the little hole-in-wall places. They're incredibly cheap and they're great Chinese food. Luckily, I have learned enough Chinese to order food and understand what we're getting, which came in handy because Michelle was a vegetarian and meat is in everything in Beijing, which I love. This place had some very unique noodles and just amazing dumplings. I took a picture of the type of noodles they were. They use a big block of uncooked noodles and take a razor and shave them off directly in to the pot of boiling water, so they're a little thicker than a normal noodle. A big bowl of noodles that I couldn't finish was 5 RMB and the dumplings were 2 RMB for 12 for a grand total of 7 RMB (about $1). This is what's great about China.

After a short rest, we decided to leave around 1pm for the event starting at 3:40. We headed to the subway station to get to the bus station to take a special bus to the venue for canoeing/kayaking/rowing. They said the bus ride would take 30 minutes but it took right over an hour. Also, typical China, they packed the bus as full as possible so everyone was incredibly uncomfortable, including the people who actually had seats. Gotta love that.

Once we arrived, the venue was very nice. The majority of the seats had people in them but for a venue capable of holding 13,000 there were easily 2,000 empty seats, if not more. That's always disappointing considering the tickets are "sold out". The event overall was very fun and we enjoyed it greatly. At the venue, we met up with two other Aussies from the hostel. We saw Men's K1 and C1 Slalom. K1 means the guy is in a kayak by himself and uses a kayak paddle. C1 means the guy is in a kayak by himself and uses a canoe paddle. This disappointed me because I really wanted to see them do the course in a solo canoe; that would've been incredibly difficult.

The best part of the compeition was watching a guy from Togo in the K1 finals. He was incredibly and had the lead going in to the finals and everyone was cheering for him because nobody was there from Togo. Unfortunately, he finished 3rd and got a Bronze medal but by the way he was reacting you would've think he just won Gold and broke a world record. It was great to see because he could tell he really appreciated and enjoyed the Olympics and the whole atmosphere.

After the medal ceremony we headed out of the stadium to get back on the bus. First, a quick stop at the port-a-potty. As a reminder, the stadium held 13,000 people. There were 12 port-a-potties!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's right, 12. Not the best planning. Lines were over 50 people deep. After that disappointment, we saw the line for the buses. Everyone from the staidum and the rowing stadium, another 13,000 people, were waiting in line. The buses are the only way to get from the stadium back to the city area. So, roughly 25,000 people getting on buses that hold no more than 100 people, hmmmmmmm, that's going to take a lot of buses. So we waited outside for over 2 hours for a bus and we were in the front half of the line. All in all, going to the kayaking event was an 8 hour even for what actually lasted 2 hours. We had a great time and would do it again but the planning has been very, very poor on almost all accounts.

After walking by to the hostel from the subway station, I took a shower, watched some more olympic events then went to sleep, pooped, knowing that I'm going to wake up Wednesday and have an incredibly busy, fun, exciting day all over again.

Posted by ndwalke on 2008-08-13 04:28:14 | Rating: