Today is 8.24.08, the last day of the 2008 Olympics. It is hard to believe they are over already. These past few weeks have really flown by.
Last night I had to work the night shift which is from 9pm - 5am. Not the best shift in the world but it was my turn. At about 1:30 am it started to rain. I was standing underneath the over hang just watching the rain. After a few minutes thunder and lightening started. In the states when you have thunder and lightening you usually hear a big boom and then the lightening strikes...not in China.
I got the inside scoop on how China controls the weather. The thunder struck and then I heard what sounded like a bottle rocket and then the lightening struck. It is not rocket science but I am pretty sure they were making sure the rain would not effect the closing ceremonies tonight at 8pm. It was pretty wild to hear and I thought you guys would be interested to hear that.
Today was some of the kids last day because they have to go back to their universities. They were all pretty sad to say goodbye just because for the past 6 weeks they have seen us everyday. When I look back on the first day when we met the kids I thought my life at work was going to be horrible. They had no idea what to do and they did not understand English...or at least they said that. Now, several weeks later, the kids did a complete turn around. It got to the point where they were speaking English and taking care of their jobs without asking us. It is a good feeling to help develop kids and make their first job experience a good one. On my way out I passed out about 100 business cards because they all want to stay in touch.
Its 6am and I am pretty tired. I am heading to bed so I can wake up to watch the US basketball game. Monday afternoon I am having an early dinner at the Italian restaurant at The Ritz. One of my friends here actually has a friend working at the hotel for the Olympics so they are taking care of us...I can't wait.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Friday, August 22, 2008
The Water Cube Experience
All international managers were given tickets to events. I asked for tickets in the Birds Nest and the Water Cube because I wanted to see both stadiums. I did not care what I was going to see I just wanted to get inside to check it out. Lucky me got exactly what I asked for. 1 ticket to diving and 1 ticket to track and field...both on the same day.
Thursday morning I woke up and it was raining. My friend Josh and I got on the subway and headed to the Water Cube. It was a 10 minute subway ride followed by a 10 minute walk give or take. When we got off the subway we followed the mass of people towards the exit. This is hard to picture but I will try to explain it as best as I can. The width of the corridor to exit the station was probably the size of 2 tennis courts and as long as 2 football fields with escalators (called elevators here..have no clue why) and stairs at the far end. I kid you not..this walk through was packed wall to wall and people were walking so slow to get out.
I am sure some of you know this but tight spaces freak me out a little bit. What freaks me out even more is when there are tight spaces and it smells horrible. Josh and I are both trying to figure out what could be the hold up until we see this lady in front of us taking pictures. 2 girls, probably my age, were having a photo shoot in the middle of this whole thing. Fulfilling the obnoxious American role we started screaming saying move out and everyone around us looked at the two of us like we were crazy. Once we broke up the photo shoot it was still slow but we were close to the stairs. I had people bumping in to me, touching me, and coughing on me. I went through a bottle of Purell while all of this was going on.
We finally make it up the steps and discovered why there was the giant hold up. It was not the photo shoot it was because it was down pouring. Now picture this...we get to the top of the escalator and there is the big over hang just like any other train station. Well the Chinese refused to get wet so the hold up was every single one of them opening up their umbrella underneath the awning. I started getting poked by umbrellas and was about to lose it. We finally barged through and ran from the train stop to the Water Cube.
Soaking wet we finally made it into The Cube. This building is incredible. It looks awesome on tv and even cooler in person. The outside of the building is actually some kind of plastic that has air pumping through to create the bubble look. I was really impressed with it. We walked around for a bit to check out the entire stadium. Everything was very modern and very high tech looking. I will post pictures soon so you can all see them.
The Olympic sport of Diving??? Probably the worst thing I have ever watched in my life. There were 10 rounds and someone jumps probably every 30 seconds. As soon as the first person jumps the play some music and the second person gets ready. The first person gets out of the pool and the second one jumps. This continues until everyone goes. We were sitting there bored out of our minds. The event went from 10am to about 12pm. I think we left at about 10:45am.
When we left we decided to go out and find some good dumplings. If you recall, one of my first weeks here we went out for a great dumpling place and paid 14 usd for an amazing meal. Well, we had not been able to find the restaurant since then. We got in a cab and told the guy to drive us in the direction in which we thought the place was. About and hour later we found it. It took 3 weeks to find this place but it was so worth it. The 2 of us ate like kings for 10 usd. If only we had something like this at home.
I had tickets to go to the Birds Nest at night but the day was long and I needed to be at work the following morning at 2am. I decided to pass on it. I plan to get tickets for the para olympics to see the stadium.
My day was awesome. We had not had a day off in a long time so being able to relax and not worry about anything was really nice. A week from today, Friday, Media Village will be closed. I am pretty excited about that because I get to start the next phase of my olympic experience but at the same time everyone who I have become good friends with will be leaving in a week. There are roughly 30 of us at MV1 and I believe only 5 people are staying and getting sent to Athletes Village.
I will post my pictures later today or tomorrow so you can get an idea of what we had to deal with just go get out of the subway.
Thursday morning I woke up and it was raining. My friend Josh and I got on the subway and headed to the Water Cube. It was a 10 minute subway ride followed by a 10 minute walk give or take. When we got off the subway we followed the mass of people towards the exit. This is hard to picture but I will try to explain it as best as I can. The width of the corridor to exit the station was probably the size of 2 tennis courts and as long as 2 football fields with escalators (called elevators here..have no clue why) and stairs at the far end. I kid you not..this walk through was packed wall to wall and people were walking so slow to get out.
I am sure some of you know this but tight spaces freak me out a little bit. What freaks me out even more is when there are tight spaces and it smells horrible. Josh and I are both trying to figure out what could be the hold up until we see this lady in front of us taking pictures. 2 girls, probably my age, were having a photo shoot in the middle of this whole thing. Fulfilling the obnoxious American role we started screaming saying move out and everyone around us looked at the two of us like we were crazy. Once we broke up the photo shoot it was still slow but we were close to the stairs. I had people bumping in to me, touching me, and coughing on me. I went through a bottle of Purell while all of this was going on.
We finally make it up the steps and discovered why there was the giant hold up. It was not the photo shoot it was because it was down pouring. Now picture this...we get to the top of the escalator and there is the big over hang just like any other train station. Well the Chinese refused to get wet so the hold up was every single one of them opening up their umbrella underneath the awning. I started getting poked by umbrellas and was about to lose it. We finally barged through and ran from the train stop to the Water Cube.
Soaking wet we finally made it into The Cube. This building is incredible. It looks awesome on tv and even cooler in person. The outside of the building is actually some kind of plastic that has air pumping through to create the bubble look. I was really impressed with it. We walked around for a bit to check out the entire stadium. Everything was very modern and very high tech looking. I will post pictures soon so you can all see them.
The Olympic sport of Diving??? Probably the worst thing I have ever watched in my life. There were 10 rounds and someone jumps probably every 30 seconds. As soon as the first person jumps the play some music and the second person gets ready. The first person gets out of the pool and the second one jumps. This continues until everyone goes. We were sitting there bored out of our minds. The event went from 10am to about 12pm. I think we left at about 10:45am.
When we left we decided to go out and find some good dumplings. If you recall, one of my first weeks here we went out for a great dumpling place and paid 14 usd for an amazing meal. Well, we had not been able to find the restaurant since then. We got in a cab and told the guy to drive us in the direction in which we thought the place was. About and hour later we found it. It took 3 weeks to find this place but it was so worth it. The 2 of us ate like kings for 10 usd. If only we had something like this at home.
I had tickets to go to the Birds Nest at night but the day was long and I needed to be at work the following morning at 2am. I decided to pass on it. I plan to get tickets for the para olympics to see the stadium.
My day was awesome. We had not had a day off in a long time so being able to relax and not worry about anything was really nice. A week from today, Friday, Media Village will be closed. I am pretty excited about that because I get to start the next phase of my olympic experience but at the same time everyone who I have become good friends with will be leaving in a week. There are roughly 30 of us at MV1 and I believe only 5 people are staying and getting sent to Athletes Village.
I will post my pictures later today or tomorrow so you can get an idea of what we had to deal with just go get out of the subway.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
2 months down....1 to go
It seems like it was just the other day I was getting off the plane getting ready to start my adventure in Beijing. Now, 2 months later, things are starting to wind down.
Since the start of the games everyone has been putting in long hours and the time has finally come to start preparing to break down Media Village. The past two weeks have flown. I can't believe there are only a few days left of the Olympics.
I have not posted in a pretty long time so everyone is probably curious as to what I have been doing. I have been working and sleeping! I had a few days off and was able to experience the Olympics as a fan.
Last week a friend and I decided we wanted to go and scalp tickets for the USA basketball game. We were willing to pay pretty much whatever because who knows when the next time I will get to see Olympic Basketball. We headed over to the arena and naturally we got lost. I think everything in China has to be a process...we had the name of the arena written down in English and Chinese. The guy had no clue where it was. We kept saying "Kobe Bryant" and he just smiled. Finally, frustrated as hell as I watched the meter keep going up I shouted "Yao Ming" and the crazy cab drive goes, "oooh yao ming." Long story short we were there in 2 minutes.
We had heard a few stories about fake tickets and to be careful scalping from the locals. In the states if you want tickets you usually walk around shouting "who has extra tickets" but in China they don't really understand English so we had to use hand gestures for extra tickets. Time was running out and we couldn't find anything until a Canadian guy came up to us. We bought 2 tickets behind the basket about 30 rows up. USA played Angola and killed them. It was awesome to watch. Sitting and watching the game and being around people from all over the world was really cool...it is an experience I will never forget. The second game was Australia vs. Argentina. We moved down and sat right behind the basket for the first half....Australia is horrible at basketball.
Yesterday I got out early and a friend and I headed to Olympic Village. Olympic Village is where all the athletes stay. They created what felt like a college campus for the athletes. It was incredible. The main dining room is the size of 3 football fields and is open 24 hours. They do about 40,000 meals a day. One of the managers showed us around and the whole time my head was on a swivel trying to spot out athletes. While there we grabbed lunch. We found a table that had the US womens basketball team to our left...the Jamaican track team to our right....US gymnastics behind us. It was incredible! The whole time I kept pinching myself because I could not believe I was sitting in a dining room with the worlds best athletes.
After we ate we walked around the village. Every apartment had flags hanging outside to show which country was living in which building. We tried to find USA but had no luck...I don't think the accommodations are up to their standards so they stay in hotels.
My next week looks like this:
Tomorrow I have tickets to Diving in the morning and then in the afternoon I have tickets to Track and Field. I have been looking forward to tomorrow since I got my tickets 2 weeks ago. I will finally get to see the inside of the Birds Nest and Water Cube.
The media is scheduled to leaver the 25th and 26th and then we will start to break down Media Village. Once it is broken down I am hoping to get a few days off and possibly go to Shanghai or Hong Kong. After the few days off I will move over to Athletes Village for the month of September.
It will be pretty strange when people start heading out of here. All the people I have been hanging out with leave September 3rd and the group of 700 international managers will get cut down by more then half. Hopefully at that point I will get a real bedroom with a real bed. YES...I am still in the stupid little bedroom on the worst bed in the world.
A quick little note. I met the chiropractor of the US decathlon team on the train the other day. We got to talking and I told him how bad my back hurts because of the beds and he told me that there are only 6 chiropractors in the city of Beijing. I should have got an adjustment on the train but it was crowded.
I am heading out to wander around the city and check out some areas I have not been to yet. I posted pictures from the basketball game and the olympic village. Check them out when you get a chance.
Since the start of the games everyone has been putting in long hours and the time has finally come to start preparing to break down Media Village. The past two weeks have flown. I can't believe there are only a few days left of the Olympics.
I have not posted in a pretty long time so everyone is probably curious as to what I have been doing. I have been working and sleeping! I had a few days off and was able to experience the Olympics as a fan.
Last week a friend and I decided we wanted to go and scalp tickets for the USA basketball game. We were willing to pay pretty much whatever because who knows when the next time I will get to see Olympic Basketball. We headed over to the arena and naturally we got lost. I think everything in China has to be a process...we had the name of the arena written down in English and Chinese. The guy had no clue where it was. We kept saying "Kobe Bryant" and he just smiled. Finally, frustrated as hell as I watched the meter keep going up I shouted "Yao Ming" and the crazy cab drive goes, "oooh yao ming." Long story short we were there in 2 minutes.
We had heard a few stories about fake tickets and to be careful scalping from the locals. In the states if you want tickets you usually walk around shouting "who has extra tickets" but in China they don't really understand English so we had to use hand gestures for extra tickets. Time was running out and we couldn't find anything until a Canadian guy came up to us. We bought 2 tickets behind the basket about 30 rows up. USA played Angola and killed them. It was awesome to watch. Sitting and watching the game and being around people from all over the world was really cool...it is an experience I will never forget. The second game was Australia vs. Argentina. We moved down and sat right behind the basket for the first half....Australia is horrible at basketball.
Yesterday I got out early and a friend and I headed to Olympic Village. Olympic Village is where all the athletes stay. They created what felt like a college campus for the athletes. It was incredible. The main dining room is the size of 3 football fields and is open 24 hours. They do about 40,000 meals a day. One of the managers showed us around and the whole time my head was on a swivel trying to spot out athletes. While there we grabbed lunch. We found a table that had the US womens basketball team to our left...the Jamaican track team to our right....US gymnastics behind us. It was incredible! The whole time I kept pinching myself because I could not believe I was sitting in a dining room with the worlds best athletes.
After we ate we walked around the village. Every apartment had flags hanging outside to show which country was living in which building. We tried to find USA but had no luck...I don't think the accommodations are up to their standards so they stay in hotels.
My next week looks like this:
Tomorrow I have tickets to Diving in the morning and then in the afternoon I have tickets to Track and Field. I have been looking forward to tomorrow since I got my tickets 2 weeks ago. I will finally get to see the inside of the Birds Nest and Water Cube.
The media is scheduled to leaver the 25th and 26th and then we will start to break down Media Village. Once it is broken down I am hoping to get a few days off and possibly go to Shanghai or Hong Kong. After the few days off I will move over to Athletes Village for the month of September.
It will be pretty strange when people start heading out of here. All the people I have been hanging out with leave September 3rd and the group of 700 international managers will get cut down by more then half. Hopefully at that point I will get a real bedroom with a real bed. YES...I am still in the stupid little bedroom on the worst bed in the world.
A quick little note. I met the chiropractor of the US decathlon team on the train the other day. We got to talking and I told him how bad my back hurts because of the beds and he told me that there are only 6 chiropractors in the city of Beijing. I should have got an adjustment on the train but it was crowded.
I am heading out to wander around the city and check out some areas I have not been to yet. I posted pictures from the basketball game and the olympic village. Check them out when you get a chance.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Pictures
I just posted some pictures. It has been a while. They are just pictures from the last couple of weeks.
Enjoy
Enjoy
Saturday, August 2, 2008
What a week
We are open! All 7 restaurants are fully functional. Almost all of the media is now here on site with a few to come in during the week. It has been quite the experience. I have been here for a month now and I have been able to see us start from nothing and end with fully stocked restaurants....it has been great.
Last Monday I was off and was able to go to the Great Wall. We wanted to go on a private trip where you hike for about 3 hours but the guy was booked. I am going to try to go on his trip in September. Anyways, we all rented a driver for the day and he took us out to the wall. It was about a 1 hour ride to the wall. We got there and we had two options; you could hike up the mountain to get to the wall or take a ski lift. Feeling good I talked most of the crowd into hiking up. The first set of stairs were like walking any steps and then we get to the second set. Straight up! Huffing and puffing we made it to the next flat spot and we all looked at each other and said, "should have taken the ski lift." After 30 minutes of hiking up to the wall we had made it. Standing on a structure that old was amazing. It was so peaceful up there. Unfortunately we did not have a very clear day so pictures did not turn out great but I still took a bunch which I will post later. The actual steps on the wall were so uneven. Some steps were your average steps while others were 2 feet. There were times where we were on our hands and knees to get up steps. It was a great experience and I hope I can go back in September for the private hike.
After we got back we were all trying to figure out where to eat. We were trying to pick a place from the list I had and someone suggested noodles and I suggested a place called Made in China. The description of the place said "best duck in china." After convincing everyone we should go there we jumped into a cab and headed to the Hyatt. The part of town the Hyatt is in is awesome. All the great restaurants and bars are in this area. Made in China was awesome. In the dining room they had 3 open kitchens. 1 was a duck kitchen, the other a dumpling kitchen and the third was a wok kitchen. We had the best seat in the house because we were surrounded by all 3. As I had told you before I have been hanging out with mostly chefs so eating is always fun because they always explain exactly what each dish is. They did all the ordering. We started out with lamb pancakes, geoduck, smoked duck breast, cuttlefish, beef knuckles, and duck gizzards in peanut sauce. You guys are all probably thinking there is no way I ate any of this...but I did. We took our time with those dishes because it took an hour to prepare the Peking duck. The duck finally came out and they carved in right in front of us. The chef came out and was showing us what to dip the duck in based on what part of the duck it was. The duck fat came out first and he handed me the plate. In broken English he goes, "duck..sugar...mouth." On the spot I grabbed my chopsticks and went to pick up a piece. I guess the pressure got to me and I kept fumbling with the chopsticks...the chef is looking at me like what an idiot and everyone at the table was cracking up. I finally just jabbed at it and got it and it tasted great. The meal was awesome and we will probably go back there before my time is up. There were 6 of us for dinner and we had two bottles of wine to add to all the dishes and the total was 1500 rmb which is 220 usd...pretty cheap for eating at a place in the Hyatt.
After dinner we went to the night market. The night market is the famous street in Beijing where you go and eat all the gross things like bugs, snakes, etc. The smell alone was enough for me not to want to eat anything. The market opens from 4pm to 10pm everyday. They don't store their food properly so that is where the wonderful smell comes from. I ate a pancake and that was it. One of the guys I was with ate a silk worm and almost died. I took some pictures so you guys can see...it was cool but I don't think I will go back there.
The past couple days, Tuesday - Sunday have been intense. We have been busy opening up everything so my hours have been very long. I have not slept much due to work and not feeling well. The city has become very busy and we are staring to see more Americans.
Just to touch on the weather and air quality here. I know the news has been saying how everything is going great here and the smog is down. I don't know if anyone was on cnn.com yesterday but the cover article was about the smog and there was a picture of the Birds Nest and you could see these thick clouds in the air. For the past month or so that is what it has been. It has been raining almost every night for the past week. Yesterday was a clear day but it seems like after they shut down the factories and limited the car use things did not get any better. Today is a little better. Hiking up to the great wall was rough due to the air so I can't imagine how the athletes will be able to handle this.
I am off tomorrow and heading to this park that overlooks the Forbidden City and possibly trying one of the 3 restaurants at The Ritz. I will try to post pictures of the wall tonight or tomorrow.
Last Monday I was off and was able to go to the Great Wall. We wanted to go on a private trip where you hike for about 3 hours but the guy was booked. I am going to try to go on his trip in September. Anyways, we all rented a driver for the day and he took us out to the wall. It was about a 1 hour ride to the wall. We got there and we had two options; you could hike up the mountain to get to the wall or take a ski lift. Feeling good I talked most of the crowd into hiking up. The first set of stairs were like walking any steps and then we get to the second set. Straight up! Huffing and puffing we made it to the next flat spot and we all looked at each other and said, "should have taken the ski lift." After 30 minutes of hiking up to the wall we had made it. Standing on a structure that old was amazing. It was so peaceful up there. Unfortunately we did not have a very clear day so pictures did not turn out great but I still took a bunch which I will post later. The actual steps on the wall were so uneven. Some steps were your average steps while others were 2 feet. There were times where we were on our hands and knees to get up steps. It was a great experience and I hope I can go back in September for the private hike.
After we got back we were all trying to figure out where to eat. We were trying to pick a place from the list I had and someone suggested noodles and I suggested a place called Made in China. The description of the place said "best duck in china." After convincing everyone we should go there we jumped into a cab and headed to the Hyatt. The part of town the Hyatt is in is awesome. All the great restaurants and bars are in this area. Made in China was awesome. In the dining room they had 3 open kitchens. 1 was a duck kitchen, the other a dumpling kitchen and the third was a wok kitchen. We had the best seat in the house because we were surrounded by all 3. As I had told you before I have been hanging out with mostly chefs so eating is always fun because they always explain exactly what each dish is. They did all the ordering. We started out with lamb pancakes, geoduck, smoked duck breast, cuttlefish, beef knuckles, and duck gizzards in peanut sauce. You guys are all probably thinking there is no way I ate any of this...but I did. We took our time with those dishes because it took an hour to prepare the Peking duck. The duck finally came out and they carved in right in front of us. The chef came out and was showing us what to dip the duck in based on what part of the duck it was. The duck fat came out first and he handed me the plate. In broken English he goes, "duck..sugar...mouth." On the spot I grabbed my chopsticks and went to pick up a piece. I guess the pressure got to me and I kept fumbling with the chopsticks...the chef is looking at me like what an idiot and everyone at the table was cracking up. I finally just jabbed at it and got it and it tasted great. The meal was awesome and we will probably go back there before my time is up. There were 6 of us for dinner and we had two bottles of wine to add to all the dishes and the total was 1500 rmb which is 220 usd...pretty cheap for eating at a place in the Hyatt.
After dinner we went to the night market. The night market is the famous street in Beijing where you go and eat all the gross things like bugs, snakes, etc. The smell alone was enough for me not to want to eat anything. The market opens from 4pm to 10pm everyday. They don't store their food properly so that is where the wonderful smell comes from. I ate a pancake and that was it. One of the guys I was with ate a silk worm and almost died. I took some pictures so you guys can see...it was cool but I don't think I will go back there.
The past couple days, Tuesday - Sunday have been intense. We have been busy opening up everything so my hours have been very long. I have not slept much due to work and not feeling well. The city has become very busy and we are staring to see more Americans.
Just to touch on the weather and air quality here. I know the news has been saying how everything is going great here and the smog is down. I don't know if anyone was on cnn.com yesterday but the cover article was about the smog and there was a picture of the Birds Nest and you could see these thick clouds in the air. For the past month or so that is what it has been. It has been raining almost every night for the past week. Yesterday was a clear day but it seems like after they shut down the factories and limited the car use things did not get any better. Today is a little better. Hiking up to the great wall was rough due to the air so I can't imagine how the athletes will be able to handle this.
I am off tomorrow and heading to this park that overlooks the Forbidden City and possibly trying one of the 3 restaurants at The Ritz. I will try to post pictures of the wall tonight or tomorrow.
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