Monday, August 25, 2008

An Adventure of Olympic Proportions

Friday morning was my last day of summer camp, so Marilyn joined me for an English party with my students. We got really into a competitive game of Disney Monopoly. Marilyn and one of my students destroyed us. After the party, we headed back to our place to meet up with our friend Amy who flew in to hit up the Olympics too.

After meeting up with her friend, we ventured onto the subway, which was chock full of other Olympic spectator hopefuls...
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It took a while to get through security, but once we did, we were rewarded with this glorious sight:
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As far as I can tell, this is some kind of Mongolian Dance Crew, a little girl, a couple foreigners, and a devilish HuanHuan (the torch Fuwa)

In the distance, the great Olympus...if Olympus were the name of some gigantic bird's nest.
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Our first objective (after documenting the Mongolian Dance Crew): Eat!
The only two choices in the Olympic Village? Mcdonalds or some weird self-steaming lunchbox...we decided to brave the mob and go for the arches.
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A fatigued and weary traveler glances back disdainfully, the golden arch cheerily illuminating the disgruntled horde.
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After eating, we made our way to the Bird's Nest. Only to find a strange mythical creature posing for photo opps.
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Further along, we encountered a not-so mythical creature: ten-time Emmy award winner Al Roker. Marilyn and I hung around for a bit trying to insert ourselves into the background of various Today Show shots.
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As we climb the steps to Nest Olympus, a sweet shot of the Water Cube:
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The highlight of the event: Men's 4 x 100m relays. Look closely and you can see Usain Bolt smashing the competition and the world record. History is being made here, and we're watching it from about 200 rows back! Yessss...
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A couple rows up from us? A group of Jamaicans.
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Our Jingjing flag looks a lot like the Jamaican one. I wave it in solidarity.
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Bolt and friends come by for a celebratory dance. We and the Jamaicans watch from 200 rows back.
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Torch and Moon
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Torch and Beans
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So that's it, our Olympic adventure! Keep an eye on the flickr stream for more pics.

4 comments:

Marianne said...

i hate you i hate you i hate you i hate you. so jealous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Marianne said...

btw this is marianne. i don't know why my identity says architecture. haha whatever

Unknown said...

i spy the beans! you guys look great--china suits you well. marilyn, you're so purdy in dem pictures. :-) i love your posts, xiao dou (x2).

Sariah said...

You guys rock! That's so amazing you were there to see Usain Bolt. Let's just say I'm a big chicken. When the Olympics were in Salt Lake, what did I do? I ran the opposite direction and went home to visit Mom and Dad. Looking back on it now, it was maybe dumb that I didn't take a chance to visit the Olympics, but I was a poor college student and lacked a car. I don't like crowds. I'm a silly goose. Hehe.