Today was another full day of Olympic action. We've settled into a good routine in the mornings and are able to get ready and get out pretty quickly. Our first event today was the Men's 3M Springboard semifinal at the National Aquatics Center, aka the Watercube, on the Olympic Green.
Finally the Olympic Green!
I've been dying to get in there since we got here, but as I wrote previously access is restricted to people who have an event ticket for one of the venues on the green. No ticket, no entry.
We got a shuttle from the hotel and got there really fast, so we had a little more time to walk around before the diving began at 10 am. No cars or buses are allowed on the Green, so we had to get out a good half mile away or so at the main entrance. Yes, the main entrance is a half mile from any of the venues. The park itself is maybe 2 miles long or so. It has it's own subway line with 4 stops. We decided to good ahead and catch the subway and go farther up than the arenas and walk back so that we could look around.
The complex has a total of 9 sport venues, pavilions for the broadcast companies including the huge broadcast pagoda next to the Bird’s Nest, pavilions for all the major Olympic sponsors, concert areas, fountains and tons of sculpture. We didn’t have a lot of time, so we didn’t do much more than walk back from the subway stop to the Bird’s Nest and Watercube. One other piece of information you need to fully paint the picture is how hot it was this morning.
It was jungle hot, as in watch out for the anacondas and poison blow darts Amazon hot. And if it were any more humid, we would have needed snorkels. A walk that took us about an hour ended up leaving both of us… moist.
Anyway, the center of the Green is a wide median with streets on either sides and then additional walkways outside the street lanes. Many of the sponsor pavilions are on this median. We crossed over to the side with the Bird Cage and started walking towards it. We noticed that this side had an sunken area that was about 2 stories deep that ran parallel to the main median and streets. There are more sculptures down there — we saw one that caught our eye that looked like drips of liquid mercury with one drip caught just as it was landing. When we got down there to take a closer look, the vertical drip was actually a rabbit. I have no idea why it is a rabbit. There were no explanatory plaques or info anywhere. There was also a McDonald’s down there, a performance area and additional large art installations.
Back up to the main level, we found a cross street that gave some great angles on the Bird Cage and Pagoda broadcast building. We did some tourist poses. Pretty much any time we stop to take pictures, people ask me to help them with their cameras and/or to use their camera to take pictures of them and whichever landmark they are interested in. As I wrote before, the Chinese people seem to love getting their photo taken in front of stuff. With the Bird Cage, I can understand since I did it to. They tend to take it to crazy town level though. There are wall posters in most venues that show a group of people having fun at the events. I think it is meant to encourage people to be courteous to others — one of those Chinese mass behavior modification efforts. Chinese people are constantly getting their photo taken in front of those posters. They do it in front of pretty much anything that has any possible tie to the Olympics. I chalk it up to them being totally new to this whole big event thing and to being honestly proud to have the Olympics in their city. It’s still pretty comical at times.
Once we got to the base of the broadcast Pagoda, I was finding it hard to get a good angle to shoot it. There is a lot of crap around it and it’s heavily guarded. We thought we’d try to find the NBC booth since the Today Show has been broadcasting live. We found it, and even though we were there during normal show hours, nothing was going on. Of course, 8 am in the morning Beijing time is not really normal broadcast hours in the US. We are 12 hours ahead of NYC. Duh.
On final approach to the Bird Cage, I noticed a large walled off area right outside the plaza around the stadium. On tip toes, I was able to see that it was the warm up track and field. I’m not sure why they would wall it off. All it did was make people come over to look and half climb the fence.
The Bird Cage itself is a huge building. It basically is a full-size stadium with an exposed superstructure. You’ve all seen it on TV, I’m sure. Up close and personal, the beams are truly massive and seem to twist and roll in ways that don’t seem architecturally sound. One of the really cool things about it is how the sunlight bounces around. I hope the photos I took accurately show what I mean. There’s almost a facetted look to it. We came in on the side in shadow. I took a few shots and decided to walk around to the sunlit side to get some shots over there. Did I say this building was huge? It took almost 15 minutes to walk around. Since we’re going to be back here for at least one more day (we have track and field one morning), I didn’t get too crazy with the Bird Cage photos. We did decide that on one of our remaining free days we would come down to the Green and see if we could buy some scalped tickets so we could get in for a night event and see how it all looks at night. We almost don’t care what the event is and may not go to it. I just want to get in at night.
On to the Watercube. This has to be one of the most unique buildings in the world and is certainly one of the most amazing Olympic venues. It certainly puts the basketball arena to shame. By now, everyone has seen what it looks like from the outside — a grid of interlocking, irregular bubbles. Inside, that theme is continued. There is a main wall next to the entry way leading into the seating area that uses the same bubble shapes, but is made up of flexible plastic and has to be inflated with air.
There are also interior water walls and reflecting pools that keep the interior much cooler than other air conditioned buildings we been into. Everything is designed around the bubble theme. There are bubbles in the counters at the info booths. The walkway is configured to undulate like a wave. The seating includes blue seats at the bottom with white seats at the top. In between the white seats start from the bottom in a random pattern increasing in frequency as they go up, like rising bubbles in water. It is by far the most thoroughly thought out building we’ve seen so far.
Men’s 3M Springboard semifinal
The seating area inside the Watercube is really relatively small. I would put it at 7500 or so max. One side of the seating is set aside for media, photographers, TV cameras and all the other specialized sections for dignitaries and athletes (that rarely get used except for final rounds). For the diving competition, only one end of the building was being used, so I estimate a quarter of the seats were being used. The seating is very steep and Angie and I found ourselves 3 rows from the top. You can’t get much more nose bleed than that. For the most part, the building was very cool due as I said. Unfortunately, none of that refreshing coolness reached the top of the stands. The seats were small, full of people and it was stifling… for an hour and a half. More of the moist.
While we weren’t surrounded by Americans like we have been previously, we were surrounded by other English speaking nationalities — Canada and Australia. The Canadian group was fairly large and all related in some way to one of the Canadian divers, Reuben Ross. They all had t-shirts that had their relation to him on the back — Reuben’s Cousin, Reuben’s Brother, etc. Unfortunately, he did fairly badly. He didn’t come in last of the 18 divers, so they had that going for them. He came in 17th.
The competition itself was fairly straightforward. There were 6 rounds of dives with 18 divers. There wasn’t much of a pause between each round, so the competition continued at a fairly even pace. Not ever having been to a diving competition and only having seen it briefly on TV, I was a little underwhelmed. Most of the dives looked the same. I get that a back 3.5 somersault is harder than a front one, or doing a twist one way might be harder than doing it the other way, but when you have 18 divers all doing some slight variation of 3 somersaults with a pike thrown in, it gets a little repetitive.
That repetition did help us in spotting the good dives in later rounds. It started to become more obvious when the dive was good or not after having seen 60 versions of them.
Since we had a late night at soccer last night and mixed in with the hot, close quarters, I started to nod off a bit. I know, how can you fall asleep at the freakin’ Olympics? I fought it, I really did.
Things started to perk up in the last couple rounds. One of the Chinese divers was so far out in front that the lower placed divers weren’t even besting his score after they completed an additional dive. His place in the final was set early on. Others’ positions were more up from grabs. If I remember correctly, the 4-12 spots changed sometimes fairly dramatically round to round. One of the American divers, Troy Dumais, had a lock on the top 4 spot through most of the competition. He had a couple bad dives at the end and fell almost out for qualifying for the final. The other American diver, Chris Colwell, did the reverse. He nailed his last two for some big scores and pulled himself out of the basement and into the final round.
All of the divers tried to pull out the stops for their last dives and a couple really nailed it. The leader, He Chong, went last and popped the highest score for any dive of the day. He could have fallen backward off the springboard and lost his speedo on the way down and would have still gotten first place. Instead, he let the other divers know he was boss. He wasn’t the only one who really uncorked one, which left me wondering why some of these divers couldn’t have performed better on their earlier, easier dives. If you can pull of a 90-100 score on your final dive, why are you hitting 70 point dives early on?
The one thing that I need to mention was the music played at the end of each dive. Right as the diver’s feet passed through the surface, the music would start blaring over the speakers. At first, it seemed like the person manning the iPod was trying to find music related to the nationality of the diver. That ended pretty quickly since there are only so many pop music songs which evoke Finland or Ukraine in some way. Unfortunately, the next playlist on the iPod was disco. Apparently, Dmitry Sautin is a Dancing Queen in his spare time. Angie, who was also nodding off, mused that they do the music that way to keep people awake.
So our grand plan was to leave the Watercube, catch the subway to the final stop on the other end of the Green, check out the main souvenir store that is supposed to have everything in one place (the arena-based souvenir selections SUCK), and then try the massive McDonalds for lunch.
Right.
First off, the line for the subway extended all the way up and out of the station, which meant there were several thousand people ahead of us. We decided to walk. Did I say the place was 2 miles or so long, maybe longer? Did I mention how hot and humid it was?
Once we got to the store and McDonalds, our normally people-loving attitudes were right out the damn window. Then we find out that the line for the store is being measured in hours. Forget that. So we head to the McDonalds. The ordering counter was maybe 50 feet long with a register every couple feet. The mob of people was 10 deep. After standing there, being pushed, jostled, getting cut in front of and sweating like Nixon in a televised debate, I was ready to initiate an international incident. And on top of that, the menu was limited to just a few items, none of which were localized in any way. Feh.
We ate outside and needed to find a cab to get us over to the basketball arena on the other side of town. Of course, we discover that no cabs are allowed at the back entrance to the Green and we have to all the way back to the main entrance. Since the last subway stop was nearby, we went down there hoping that the crowds weren’t too bad. We were able to get a seat before the masses got on, so that was decent. We’re getting pretty used to the subway here, so we were able to navigate around and get to our cab in about a half hour.
Now, as I wrote previously, our tickets for the night’s games included one session of two games with us sitting behind a metal bar and glass panels. Unacceptable. We had talked about finding some better seats via the scalpers and did a quick walkthrough of them before going in. They all had tickets for the first session and not the second, so we went to plan B — seat hopping.
I’ve described the process before. The Chinese seem to have no regard for what their tickets mean. An open seat in a better location is on open invitation. At times, upwards of a third of the people in a given section don’t have tickets for the seats they are sitting in. We decided to give it a try for the second session, which included the US/Korea game. Before that, we had Belarus vs China and Australia vs Czech Republic.
Game 1 — China vs Belarus
Again, the Chinese crowd was really into the game. The flags were everywhere and the Cha Yo cheer was almost non-stop. The Chinese women did really well, although they had some rough spots that I think a more skilled and talented team will do better at exploiting than Belarus did. The Belarus team looked out of their depth a bit. They were fouling like crazy and could not keep the ball under control. Add to that inconsistent shooting and they never really had a chance.
The interesting thing about this game was that Donna Orender was sitting just a few seats away from us. Someone with a USA Basketball shirt came down and got her after awhile and I didn’t see her come back.
Game 2 — Australia vs Czech Republic
Damn. Talk about a statement game. The Aussies dominated the Czech. The Czech team only had 27 points after three quarters. Truly amazing defense against a mediocre offense.
The bigger story is, of course, Penny Taylor going down with what looked like an ankle injury. I don’t know if the broadcast picked up her scream, but man did we ever hear it.
She got fouled under the basket and let out a little yelp with the foul — the Aussies were already up pretty big and about half the Chinese fans left after the first game so it was fairly quiet — and then let out a scream when she came down and suffered the injury. They don’t show any kind of replays on the big screen (in any venue we are discovering), so it wasn’t clear to us what happened. All I know is that she was down for a long time and had to be helped off.
A couple of the Czech players were standing over Penny while the trainers worked on her. One reached down to either pat her or offer a hand. LJ came over and really bitched the Czechs out, telling them to leave her alone and back off. She was pretty steamed the rest of the way and took it to the Czech team. Don’t piss her off, even if it seemed like they were trying to be nice.
Even without Penny, the Aussies easily handled the Czechs. In the stands, the Aussie contingent was still large, but a lot more subdued. Even before Penny’s injury, they weren’t nearly as loud as they were during the last game. Maybe they are saving it up for the next rounds.
Game 3 — USA vs Korea
Ok, so we got back into the arena (they kick us out between sessions), and went to our ticketed seats. As we sat there strategizing where we might go — we were thinking about moving back a couple rows and offering our seats to anyone who we had taken seats from — and spotted that the mid-section usher was gone from his post. We looked around and though to go for it. We kicked it down into the cush seats at about row 10 or so. Just to be extra bold, we went for the aisle seats at mid-court. We sat there nervously for about a half hour. Our plan in case we were challenged by the actual ticket holders was to play dumb like we misread our own tickets and move to nearby seats. We decided on where we’d move to ahead of time so it didn’t look like we were searching for open seats, not that the Chinese who do this really care about that.
The game got underway and so far, no problems. We actually made it to the half before the two people with tickets showed up. Luckily for us, there were still 4 empties right next to us in that row, so we just moved down. We made it the whole game with no problems. It wasn’t until the period between games that the rest of the actual ticket holders showed up. By that time, most of the people in the seats in our immediate area were seat hoppers. We ended up moving sections, but still in the lower area. We made it through the second game as well. The next round of games has us up in the nosebleeds. There won’t be any easy seat hopping for that situation. We’ll have to go the scalping route and plan on getting to the arena earlier than normal so we can work the line.
The game itself was a lot of fun to watch. The US was rolling and was able to do what I thought might happen once Korea got to play a really good team — slow down their shooters. Korea has some great shooters, but not much else. Their defense isn’t all that strong and they don’t have anyone who can really play center or power forward. Given that, Fowles had a monster night. Leslie was on the verge of doing so, but got into foul trouble. The US as a team put on a solid show and easily won the game.
A couple of in-the-stands items.
For a short time, Candace Parker’s mom was sitting in front of us. She had to move because she was in the wrong section. We tried to get her to take the seats next to us, but she didn’t and moved over with a group of Americans on one side who included a lot of coaches, including former Storm assistant coach Heidi VanDerveer, and other players’ families.
The trend I was watching concerning how demonstrative US fans are at the games continued. There were many more US fans at this game, but still no where near the rabid support we saw from the Aussies. A few flags were waving, but no organized chants. Are we so afraid of being seen as rude or arrogant? Angie and were yelling like we normally do — at the refs, for some of the players, normal stuff — and we were getting looks. I’ll keep watching how this plays out as the games get bigger leading up to the Gold medal match (if the US gets there).
Speaking of yelling things, I kept having to stop myself from yelling stuff about the Storm. I also had to stop myself from heckling Leslie and Milton-Jones when they were complaining about calls or imagined calls to the refs. The uniforms are different, but the anti-Spark conditioning is strong in this one.
The US men’s team came to watch, although I didn’t see Kobe. He might have been there since my view was partially blocked. A crowd of Chinese came down to take photos, but there were only half or less than how many came down with the Chinese men’s team showed up the other night.
Game 4 — Russia vs Spain
Finally, a close game… well most of the way.
Spain really came out hot, but Russia outlasted them and was able to dig themselves out of the whole in the second half and win handily. Unlike the last game we saw, the Russians played Becky Hammon as a starter instead of an off-the-bench shooter and gave her tons of playing time. She was really the difference in the game overall. The looming US vs Russia game will be very interesting indeed. I don’t think the Russians have the bench to hang with the US and they are very inconsistent. I think the US will find a way of capitalizing on the Russian’s rough shooting spots.
In the stands, I think we may have found a group who could give the Aussie fans a run for their money — Russian fans. They were out in force and making a ton of noise, all game long. It’s too bad these two teams won’t be facing each other in the next round. Seeing the Aussie fans go mano y mano with the Russians would have been a lot of fun (when the game means something, the final pool play game wasn’t really in doubt).
Well, tomorrow is our first day off from Olympic events, so we’re heading up to the Great Wall.
Showing posts with label Spain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spain. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Beijing — Day 2 Basketball
We’re already old pros at this. We got up, hit the buffet and did the bus/subway combo to get over to the Beijing Olympic Basketball Gymnasium at the Wukesong Sports Center. A short walk from the train station (which by the way was Line 1 which, as logic would have it, was the first subway line built in Beijing. It shows, especially compared to the much newer lines just completed for the games. Lines 1 and 2 look like they are straight out of the 70s and not in a good way. They also have that old basement smell, ugh.) got us to the spectator entrance and security.
Before we get to the security check, because let’s face it — I’m packing large with my camera and all and at this point in our trip was feeling a little anxious about what might really happen when I get to the check point — I need to describe what it’s like outside the venues.
Every 20-30 feet or so, there are people selling small trinkets, mostly Olympic and Chinese flags, temporary face tattoos (which happen to be more Chinese flags), red headbands and sometimes mascot imprinted stuff like… flags. Basically lots of flags. Most of them seem pretty bored and will be standing there lazily waving their flaggy goods. Others, however, have fully embraced the capitalist attitude and are hyper aggressive. They step in front of you waving their goods at you (that sounded bad) and usually following you a bit, unless the crowd is large enough so that they can quickly focus their market-driven attention on someone else. We just hold up our hand and say, “No,” until they give up.
The other group of people we’re seeing more and more are the ones selling tickets. We were told before we got here and have seen several signs warning about how seriously ticket scalping would be punished. When we left the handball venue the other night, we walked past a subway entrance that had a decent representation of security, police and army personnel on one side and a huge sign warning about scalping, while the other side was literally lined shoulder-to-shoulder with Chinese people waving around event tickets. A lot of business was being done.
Outside the basketball arena, there were fewer people selling tickets, but they were there. Inside, we talked to a handful of Americans who have been taking advantage of the scalping to get into events. A couple people we talked to didn’t even have event tickets purchased before the got to China and have relied completely on scalped tickets to get in!
We’re not really looking to add more events, although we’re going to check a couple “sources” to see what’s available, but we will be seeing if we can upgrade our tickets for the Bronze and Gold medal women’s basketball games. After being in the arena and seeing where our current tickets will put us, we will be looking to do some bartering.
Today though, we bypassed all of that and reached the security checkpoint. Going through security has actually been very easy so far. The volunteers manning the checkpoints are polite and intent on keeping the flow of people moving smoothly. They do only let a couple people through the metal detectors at a time so that each person can be scanned with the walk-through detector, checked with a hand-held wand and have their bags go through an x-ray machine. Being that this was my first attempt with my camera gear — and I brought all of it, no sense in going small — I was apprehensive. My worries were unfounded. No one even blinked. In two minutes, I was through the machine, wand and x-ray and waiting for Angie who once again had to empty out her bag for a more thorough inspection (she’s carrying a lot of stuff).
The exterior of the basketball arena is kind of normal looking, compared to some of the other venues we’ve seen. The original plan, according to what I’ve read, was to have the entire exterior surface of the building to be giant video screens. It was going to either be too expensive or take too long to complete, so they covered it instead with undulating, perforated metal strips. Eh. The plaza outside the arena is also fairly bland. I guess we’re not really here to be wowed by the venue, right?
Inside the arena, unlike the handball court, the concourse went all the way around. There was only one souvenir stand through and the stuff they were selling wasn’t what I was expecting. I was hoping for, you know, event related stuff — jerseys especially. Nope, they had lots of towels, crystal things, mascot toys, books, but nothing that was tied to either basketball or the venue. Missed opportunity. If the souvenirs you can buy are the same arena to arena, chances are you’re going to buy the two or three things you want and then not buy anything else. Maybe this whole capitalism thing hasn’t sunken in all the way yet.
The arena itself is about the same size as KeyArena. Same capacity and similar setup with a lower bowl and upper bowl separated by a suite section. The upper bowl looks a lot more steep than the Key and the lower bowl is a little more flat at the bottom. The middle section of seats is at a great angle — unless someone was standing we had a clear, unobstructed view. This won’t be the case in the near future. At row 17, there is a concrete wall separating the permanent seats from the temporary bleachers near the court. It looks like the entire section of lower seats can be removed depending on the event. The wall itself is short enough to not pose a problem. The metal and glass section above the concrete will be a problem. There is a thick metal bar right at eye level held up by vertical supports every other seat or so, with thick, dirty and scratched glass in the open areas. I understand that they needed something there to keep people from falling over the wall when the lower seats are removed, but there was some extraordinary poor planning when it came to executing where the tube and glass section sat. We’re going to try and move our seats for that game, I think. It’s not just that taking photos will be out of the question, simply watching the game itself will be screwed up.
A good third of the seating is sectioned off for media, dignitaries and other athletes. With as much of the seating blocked off as there is, I’d estimate that a full house may only reach 12,000. For the most part, the blocked off sections stayed empty the entire day. There were only ever a handful of press or photographers present at any one time. The only time the athlete section saw any action was during the China/Czech Republic game when most of the Chinese men’s basketball team showed up. That sent the crowd into a tizzy. When people saw Yao Ming come in, there was a huge roar from that end of the building and a mob ran down to get as near as possible to him and his teammates to take pictures. All day long up to that point, there had been a line of volunteers sitting at the end of each row in the athletes’ section, even though the section was also roped off. It didn’t make any sense why they needed to be there until Yao showed up. It was like a thin, blue-shirted wall against the masses.
Another thing we saw right off were the sections of Chinese people who were being led to cheer. It was pretty obvious during some of the more poorly attended games. You would have sparsely populated seating and then a full section, all of them armed with thundersticks and pom poms. They were mostly indiscriminate about for whom they cheered, but they were very enthusiastic.
First game: Spain vs Mali
We had a couple of Americans on our left, Ken and his son Kevin from Green Bay, and an elderly Chinese woman and her daughter on our right. We chatted quite a bit with Ken and Kevin. Of course, as soon as they identified themselves as coming from Green Bay, any other Americans, us included, started asking questions about Brett Favre. I’m sure they are probably getting sick of talking about Favre. They were the first Americans we’ve gotten to talk to since we started our trip, so we kind of talked them to death a little bit.
At the beginning of each game, the players are introduced one at a time and form a single file line at the free throw line in front of their bench. The faced us because the flags for all the countries competing in the tournament were ringing the arena above and behind us. Something I hadn’t noticed before is that each player uses a number by position and not by choice, meaning the same position on each team has the same number. After each team is introduced, the national anthem for each country is played. The arena is has one of those ring video screens around the top of the suite section, again just like KeyArena, and the scoreboard itself has 4 massive video screens at the bottom with a small ring video screen under it, along with eight smaller screens at the top. During a national anthem, computer animated flags for that country are displayed on all these screens. It was impressive to be suddenly flooded with the color of each country as it’s anthem was performed. After the anthems, the teams trade small gifts from their homes with each other as a sign of good will. Once they both go back for one last pregame huddle, the starters come out to center court, each player shaking hands with the refs and then with the other team. Then it’s all left to the jump ball.
As the game began and Mali showed that sometimes being at the Olympics might have to be enough — they were really, really bad — the older Chinese woman next to me was getting more and more irritated. Every time Mali missed an easy basket or lost the ball on a bad pass, she would groan or spit out some line of Chinese that didn’t really need a translation. The two of us started to have a conversation of sorts, expression our exasperation at Mali’s futility. There would be a missed, open layup and we’d look at each other and shake our heads. She obviously knew basketball and was thoroughly unimpressed by Mali and Spain. I think, like us, she was there to see some good basketball.
As it became painfully clear that Mali was totally outmatched, even by the mediocre Spanish team, the Chinese crowd started to cheer for Mali more and more. Any time a Malinese player looked like she had a chance to do something positive, the crowd would start to make some noise and then either groan when she failed or cheer when she succeeded.
A word, or several, about the timeout and halftime entertainment: the Beijing Dream Dancers, followed by the Beijing Dream Performers. The dancers were split into two groups: an eight-woman Chinese group that did most of the performances; and a larger group of Caucasian women who did more of the later games (I say Caucasian, because they weren’t necessarily American. I think they might have been Eastern European). The Chinese group performed several times during each game. Over the course of 6 games, they wore the same costumes once. Picture lots of long hair being whipped around, bare gyrating mid-riffs and loud dance/techno music. Oh, and smiles, smiles, smiles. The dancing itself was a mix of the normal arena dance team moves and not-so-arena-like traditional Asian dance moves. The other group likewise was a mix of the normal stuff with what I would call Russian or Eastern European traditional dancing.
The Beijing Dream Performers were all men and were either what I called the Shaolin Basketball Troupe or more standard cheerleader types. The Shaolin group came in and did that kind of mock martial art fight dance thing, which was impressive, but did it while working in a basketball and dribbling. It was a little odd. Under the title of Dream Performers was also a group who did the circus dunks off a trampoline.
The last group of dead time performers were the mascots. Now most people think the Olympic mascots are cute. That may be, but seeing them in action as people in mascot suits jumping around, throwing t-shirts, doing the hand-to-the-nonexistent-ear I can’t hear you thing, well, it was disturbing.
Anyway, Mali lost horribly. We chatted and/or grunted with our seatmates, and then the Aussies showed up.
Game 2 — Australia vs Russia
Oh boy, did the Aussies show up.
We’ve seen 8 Olympic matches so far — 2 handball and 6 basketball — and I can say with confidence that no one does being a fan like the Aussies. The Germans were impressive during handball and the Chinese have overwhelming numbers for everything else, but the Aussies have a presence that can’t be denied or ignored.
We ended up sitting with of a small group, including LJ’s cousin, that was relatively calm compared to the one massive group who sat behind the Aussie bench. They have to have made it on the broadcast, because they were full on decked out with wigs, costumes, flags, face paint, blow-up kangaroos — you name it. Several big strapping guys were dressed up AS the team, complete with unitards and blond wigs. Now I know the players don’t necessarily like the unitards and I thought I had read that they were ditching them for normal basketball shorts and jerseys. Maybe later, because they’re still in them. Unfortunately for the rest of us in the stands, so were these guys… and they were going commando. Commando.
All I can say is that they grow them big down under.
Next to me (now between me and the elderly Chinese woman) was a young Aussie woman (I don’t recall her name, sorry) who was sporting a couple flags. In front was LJ’s cousin and a couple of her friends. All of them had on the Aussie colors. We ended up on the big screen 3 or 4 times because of the flags.
Ah, getting on the big screen. The Chinese are CRAZY about getting on the big screen. They go nuts when they get on and go to great lengths to get noticed by the camera people. It was a lot of fun to watch how excited some of them got, especially the very young kids and the older folks, and if whoever got on the screen actually did something like start dancing the rest of the crowd cheered like mad. The biggest cheers actually came when non-Chinese got up on the screen and either danced, like one Latvian guy did, or held up a Chinese flag. During the China/Czech game, that happened and the place erupted. An American guy sitting about 10 seats away from us had an American flag draped around his shoulders and was holding up a Chinese flag. The place went freakin’ nuts.
Back to the game.
We were sure to tell the Aussies around us who on their team we were cheering for and why. They of course agreed that LJ and Tully were brilliant, and that Penny and Snell were pretty good too. Once the game got underway, any of you who watched it know that it went from bad to ugly for the Aussies pretty quick. The Russians have always been accused of sandbagging in the early rounds to mask their game and to ambush their opponents in the later rounds. It certainly felt that way today, at least in the first half.
Becky Hammon, when she finally came in, took control and was hitting everything. The Aussie fans kept up their chants and cheers, but it didn’t seem to be helping much. It was about this time that the fairly large contingent of Russian fans made their presence known, chanting “Rus She Ah, Rus She Ah” (Russia pronounced as three, distinct syllables — something the other Eastern European fans did for Lat Vi Ah and Bel Ah Rus. I guess there’s something to be said about having a country name with three syllables ending in “ia.”). The Russians weren’t as garishly dressed as the Aussies, but they were flag waving fools to be sure.
Anyway, Russia was up at the half by 12, mostly on the shoulders of Hammon and Abrosimova.
Angie and I intended to yell “Brick” at Becky Hammon during any of her free throws. We totally blew our chance. She had two free throws in the second quarter and we were too busy watching the crowd or chatting with our neighbors and didn’t realize we missed our opportunity until she’d already shot the second free throw. There will be a next game.
The issue of Hammon getting on the Russian team came up with the other, non-US fans. They may not have known the specifics, but they all thought it was fishy at best and wrong at worst. They were mostly irked that she was the reason Russia was doing as well as they were. No short, blond, gum-smacking American on the team and the Aussies would be in control.
Well, even Becky couldn’t hold the whole game, especially when she ended up being benched most if not all of the third quarter. The Aussies came out and destroyed Russia in the second half 50-28. All of the Aussie big guns went off, including Snell who was red hot from the outside. All our attention was on LJ and Tully, but Snell came out firing. After the game, we got a chance to see some of the Aussie players up on the plaza and I talked to Snell a bit. I told her she needs to send a game tape of this game to the Phoenix coaching staff and tell them “See what I can do with some playing time.” She laughed and agreed.
After the game, LJ’s cousin took us over to LJ’s parents and we got to say hello to her mom, Maree who recognized us from the Storm games they’ve come to. All the Aussie fans congregated outside the arena in the plaza and were having a great time. There was a news crew from Australia there talking to the guys in the unitards. Chinese people were mobbing any Aussie in costume and wanting to get a picture taken with them. It was a little comical that any foreigner who had a flag or even the slightest bit of home color on them — face paint, shirt, flag, whatever — instantly drew a crown of Chinese wanting to get their photo taken with that person. The Aussies, who were be far decked out more than anyone we’ve seen, literally had Chinese lining up for photos.
Later, when some of the players started filing out to find their friends or family in the group, I thought they would get some attention from the Chinese. Not even a little bit. It was flag man with the tights for a souvenir shot, not Penny Taylor or Suzy Batkovic. As I said, I went up and talked to Snell a bit. I said hello to Screen and Suzy. We waited around until Tully came out and talked to her a bit too. I asked her what Jan Stirling said during half time and Tully smiled and said “We all needed to kick ourselves in the butt a bit.” As we were talking to her, I noticed Becky Hammon coming out.
She was alone — no other Russians came out through the plaza — and I think was meeting her family up there. She was pretty upset with how the game went and was talking about how the rest of the team wasn’t paying attention to defense or what she was telling them when she was in. I asked her about being benched when she was the one who really sparked them in the first half and she just shrugged and said she couldn’t do anything about the rotations. She left with her family, both knees covered in huge bags of ice.
We also spotted Lucianne Bertieau, a player who was at a Storm training camp a few years ago but didn’t make the team, or was on the team for a very short time (I can’t remember which year). She was there to see a friend play and had her 8-month old daughter with her. She says that she’s quit playing basketball now that she has a daughter.
Game 3 — Korea vs Latvia
For this game, our seats were down much closer to the court and were much nicer and cushy, although the leg room was still pretty tight. We were again sitting next to Americans, this time on both sides. There was a couple from New York next to me who were WNBA fans. Next to Angie was a mother and son from Seattle. They were a couple of the people who didn’t have all their tickets purchased ahead of the games and were getting them on the street as they went. Angie talked to them more so I’ll let her relate their story.
With the ladies next to me being big WNBA fans, it was almost like sitting at the Key watching a Storm game. Sarcastic comments were flying about the refs and horrible calls — and I do mean horrible. There were several out-of-bounds calls that were flat out missed, including one right in front of us and a ref in which a Latvian player bounced the ball fully outside the line. No call. They would allow body blows under the basket but call hand checking out on the perimeter. It was a mad house. MAD HOUSE.
This was actually a very important game for both teams. Win and you’re into the medal round. Lose and you’re out. Both the American and Chinese coaching staffs were scouting the game. Before the game started, Angie stood up (we were within about 2 sections of the athletes’ section where the coaches were sitting) and yelled for Coach Donovan. Angie had on a green Storm shirt with a big logo so she’d be visible. I think it was Dawn Staley who saw Angie and pointed her out to Coach D. All four coaches waved to us.
The game itself was dominated by the Koreans in almost every way early except for free throw shooting. If the Latvians hadn’t been getting to the line as often as they did, they would have been blown out. The Koreans are excellent shooters and were playing really tight team ball. The Latvians, not so much.
We were excited to Sung Jun Min playing for the Koreans. The season she spent on the Storm was mostly wasted due to injury and very little playing time. I can see now what Coach Donovan saw in her when Anne signed her. She is a strong court leader and besides her shooting was in there scrapping for rebounds and setting up plays.
The Latvians made a push late in the game, probably realizing they were playing themselves out of a chance for a medal, but couldn’t overcome the Korean lead.
Fan-wise, there were a few, vocal Latvians. There were more Koreans of course and they were pretty loud. The interesting thing about this game and crowd noise was when the Chinese started to boo during Korean free throws. It was the first boos any of us had heard and it was a little shocking.
The other thing that we really noticed during this and the next game, more so than before because we were in much better seats, was the amount of seat hopping that was going on. The Chinese seemed to think that their tickets were more of a suggestion than any real indication of where they were supposed to sit. If they saw an empty seat in a better position than where they currently were, it was a rush to see who could get there first. The ushers, who were plentiful, checked tickets every time we left our section or left the seating area for the concourse. Let me be more specific. They checked OUR tickets. They weren’t checking everyone’s tickets. I can tell you we’re looking at this experience a lot differently.
On the one hand, the Chinese officials are trying to control everything, but they actually control very little. There seems to be a game going on in which the rules are plentiful and carry heavy punishments if broken but are only enforced if you are really obvious about breaking them. The goal of the game is to see how far you can go before getting noticed. If you can do something, everyone around you sees that and start doing it too. Before the officials can react, it’s too late to do anything without going overboard. With so many outside eyes watching, overboard isn’t an option. So, you have blatant ticket scalping going on under the No Scalping signs. You have 5 ticket checks to go through to get to your assigned seat only to find three people pushing each other out of the way to take your seat.
After the game, I went down to right behind the scorers’ table and got the attention of the Chinese woman doing the public address work in Chinese and asked her if I could get a shot of her and the guy who was doing the English version. She thought it was a little odd, but I explained I was trying to take in the whole experience and wanted to get their photo since they were a big part of the games all day long. While we waited for the guy, who turns out to be the announcer for the Cleveland Cavaliers, she asked me questions about where I was from and how our stay in China was going so far. She had never heard of T-Mobile, my magenta overlord and client I work on most at the agency. Anyway, after finishing an announcement, the guy came up, was a little perplexed why anyone would want his photo and posed for me.
Game 4 — Brazil vs Belarus
Brazil got their first win and even though Belarus is still going into the medal round, I think they are going to get swallowed by whomever they play. They looked really bad. Brazil looked relieved to win a game. Who knows what might have been if Iziane hadn’t taken herself off the team.
Game 5 — China vs Czech Republic
They kick us out of the arena after each pair of games, so we waited out front once again. The crowds started piling into the plaza, eager to see their national team play. The Chinese people that we’ve seen at the events are almost giddy about their national team. Lining up outside to get in, scores of people were having their pictures taken with the basketball arena in the background to prove they were here. Again, any foreigner with a flag was getting stopped. I got stopped by a group of guys who may have thought I was a pro photographer since they were eyeing my camera and wanted to get their photo taken with me.
Inside, it was a sea of red. When the Chinese national anthem was played, the whole arena sang, some of the Chinese around us sang the song with a lot of force and emotion. This is a huge deal for them. Then Yao Ming showed up, as I described earlier, and the crowd went crazy.
They had one main cheer they did. It was a call and answer. One person would start and say the call phrase and the crowd would answer “Cha Yo.” I’m not sure what it meant, but it was going on all game long, sometimes in small groups and sometimes with the whole arena in unison. I felt a little sorry for the Czech players who had to face that. It was impressive and had to be daunting.
The Czech team didn’t really have a chance and, although they made a push at the end, got rolled by the Chinese.
During this game, we were surrounded by Chinese with some Aussies there to cheer for their “9th state” as they called New Zealand and an American guy from San Diego. This is his seventh Olympics, and he’s another one who is relying on street tickets to get into events. He was also an old hat at the seat hopping game. Once the China/Czech game was complete, he made a beeline for some new seats a little closer to the action for the US/NZ game.
Game 6 — USA vs New Zealand
I’m almost sorry to say this was the most boring game of the day. New Zealand played well to start, but the US steamrolled them. Angie and I both were pretty exhausted by 12 hours of basketball. She fell asleep and I was nodding off.
About half the crowd left, especially once the US got up by 20+. In terms of fan presence, there were a lot of Americans there, but very few were dressed up or waving flags. I’m going to keep an eye on that to see if there might be a trend. It definitely seems so far that just about every other country is perfectly comfortable being as nationalistic as they want to be, but not so much with the Americans we’ve seen. It will be interesting to see if that holds out with other events.
After the game, we yelled for Sue who gave us a wave. We found a taxi and headed for the hotel. 15 hours total from start to finish, our longest day yet (I’m writing this Monday morning).
I shot 2700 photos — about 40GB. I’ll try to post some highlights, but I’m already two days behind now. I knew this would happen, but with this kind of quantity and no days off it is inevitable.
Day 3 brings us a bike tour of the Hutongs near the Forbidden City and a semifinal women’s soccer game tonight. More basketball tomorrow.
Before we get to the security check, because let’s face it — I’m packing large with my camera and all and at this point in our trip was feeling a little anxious about what might really happen when I get to the check point — I need to describe what it’s like outside the venues.
Every 20-30 feet or so, there are people selling small trinkets, mostly Olympic and Chinese flags, temporary face tattoos (which happen to be more Chinese flags), red headbands and sometimes mascot imprinted stuff like… flags. Basically lots of flags. Most of them seem pretty bored and will be standing there lazily waving their flaggy goods. Others, however, have fully embraced the capitalist attitude and are hyper aggressive. They step in front of you waving their goods at you (that sounded bad) and usually following you a bit, unless the crowd is large enough so that they can quickly focus their market-driven attention on someone else. We just hold up our hand and say, “No,” until they give up.
The other group of people we’re seeing more and more are the ones selling tickets. We were told before we got here and have seen several signs warning about how seriously ticket scalping would be punished. When we left the handball venue the other night, we walked past a subway entrance that had a decent representation of security, police and army personnel on one side and a huge sign warning about scalping, while the other side was literally lined shoulder-to-shoulder with Chinese people waving around event tickets. A lot of business was being done.
Outside the basketball arena, there were fewer people selling tickets, but they were there. Inside, we talked to a handful of Americans who have been taking advantage of the scalping to get into events. A couple people we talked to didn’t even have event tickets purchased before the got to China and have relied completely on scalped tickets to get in!
We’re not really looking to add more events, although we’re going to check a couple “sources” to see what’s available, but we will be seeing if we can upgrade our tickets for the Bronze and Gold medal women’s basketball games. After being in the arena and seeing where our current tickets will put us, we will be looking to do some bartering.
Today though, we bypassed all of that and reached the security checkpoint. Going through security has actually been very easy so far. The volunteers manning the checkpoints are polite and intent on keeping the flow of people moving smoothly. They do only let a couple people through the metal detectors at a time so that each person can be scanned with the walk-through detector, checked with a hand-held wand and have their bags go through an x-ray machine. Being that this was my first attempt with my camera gear — and I brought all of it, no sense in going small — I was apprehensive. My worries were unfounded. No one even blinked. In two minutes, I was through the machine, wand and x-ray and waiting for Angie who once again had to empty out her bag for a more thorough inspection (she’s carrying a lot of stuff).
The exterior of the basketball arena is kind of normal looking, compared to some of the other venues we’ve seen. The original plan, according to what I’ve read, was to have the entire exterior surface of the building to be giant video screens. It was going to either be too expensive or take too long to complete, so they covered it instead with undulating, perforated metal strips. Eh. The plaza outside the arena is also fairly bland. I guess we’re not really here to be wowed by the venue, right?
Inside the arena, unlike the handball court, the concourse went all the way around. There was only one souvenir stand through and the stuff they were selling wasn’t what I was expecting. I was hoping for, you know, event related stuff — jerseys especially. Nope, they had lots of towels, crystal things, mascot toys, books, but nothing that was tied to either basketball or the venue. Missed opportunity. If the souvenirs you can buy are the same arena to arena, chances are you’re going to buy the two or three things you want and then not buy anything else. Maybe this whole capitalism thing hasn’t sunken in all the way yet.
The arena itself is about the same size as KeyArena. Same capacity and similar setup with a lower bowl and upper bowl separated by a suite section. The upper bowl looks a lot more steep than the Key and the lower bowl is a little more flat at the bottom. The middle section of seats is at a great angle — unless someone was standing we had a clear, unobstructed view. This won’t be the case in the near future. At row 17, there is a concrete wall separating the permanent seats from the temporary bleachers near the court. It looks like the entire section of lower seats can be removed depending on the event. The wall itself is short enough to not pose a problem. The metal and glass section above the concrete will be a problem. There is a thick metal bar right at eye level held up by vertical supports every other seat or so, with thick, dirty and scratched glass in the open areas. I understand that they needed something there to keep people from falling over the wall when the lower seats are removed, but there was some extraordinary poor planning when it came to executing where the tube and glass section sat. We’re going to try and move our seats for that game, I think. It’s not just that taking photos will be out of the question, simply watching the game itself will be screwed up.
A good third of the seating is sectioned off for media, dignitaries and other athletes. With as much of the seating blocked off as there is, I’d estimate that a full house may only reach 12,000. For the most part, the blocked off sections stayed empty the entire day. There were only ever a handful of press or photographers present at any one time. The only time the athlete section saw any action was during the China/Czech Republic game when most of the Chinese men’s basketball team showed up. That sent the crowd into a tizzy. When people saw Yao Ming come in, there was a huge roar from that end of the building and a mob ran down to get as near as possible to him and his teammates to take pictures. All day long up to that point, there had been a line of volunteers sitting at the end of each row in the athletes’ section, even though the section was also roped off. It didn’t make any sense why they needed to be there until Yao showed up. It was like a thin, blue-shirted wall against the masses.
Another thing we saw right off were the sections of Chinese people who were being led to cheer. It was pretty obvious during some of the more poorly attended games. You would have sparsely populated seating and then a full section, all of them armed with thundersticks and pom poms. They were mostly indiscriminate about for whom they cheered, but they were very enthusiastic.
First game: Spain vs Mali
We had a couple of Americans on our left, Ken and his son Kevin from Green Bay, and an elderly Chinese woman and her daughter on our right. We chatted quite a bit with Ken and Kevin. Of course, as soon as they identified themselves as coming from Green Bay, any other Americans, us included, started asking questions about Brett Favre. I’m sure they are probably getting sick of talking about Favre. They were the first Americans we’ve gotten to talk to since we started our trip, so we kind of talked them to death a little bit.
At the beginning of each game, the players are introduced one at a time and form a single file line at the free throw line in front of their bench. The faced us because the flags for all the countries competing in the tournament were ringing the arena above and behind us. Something I hadn’t noticed before is that each player uses a number by position and not by choice, meaning the same position on each team has the same number. After each team is introduced, the national anthem for each country is played. The arena is has one of those ring video screens around the top of the suite section, again just like KeyArena, and the scoreboard itself has 4 massive video screens at the bottom with a small ring video screen under it, along with eight smaller screens at the top. During a national anthem, computer animated flags for that country are displayed on all these screens. It was impressive to be suddenly flooded with the color of each country as it’s anthem was performed. After the anthems, the teams trade small gifts from their homes with each other as a sign of good will. Once they both go back for one last pregame huddle, the starters come out to center court, each player shaking hands with the refs and then with the other team. Then it’s all left to the jump ball.
As the game began and Mali showed that sometimes being at the Olympics might have to be enough — they were really, really bad — the older Chinese woman next to me was getting more and more irritated. Every time Mali missed an easy basket or lost the ball on a bad pass, she would groan or spit out some line of Chinese that didn’t really need a translation. The two of us started to have a conversation of sorts, expression our exasperation at Mali’s futility. There would be a missed, open layup and we’d look at each other and shake our heads. She obviously knew basketball and was thoroughly unimpressed by Mali and Spain. I think, like us, she was there to see some good basketball.
As it became painfully clear that Mali was totally outmatched, even by the mediocre Spanish team, the Chinese crowd started to cheer for Mali more and more. Any time a Malinese player looked like she had a chance to do something positive, the crowd would start to make some noise and then either groan when she failed or cheer when she succeeded.
A word, or several, about the timeout and halftime entertainment: the Beijing Dream Dancers, followed by the Beijing Dream Performers. The dancers were split into two groups: an eight-woman Chinese group that did most of the performances; and a larger group of Caucasian women who did more of the later games (I say Caucasian, because they weren’t necessarily American. I think they might have been Eastern European). The Chinese group performed several times during each game. Over the course of 6 games, they wore the same costumes once. Picture lots of long hair being whipped around, bare gyrating mid-riffs and loud dance/techno music. Oh, and smiles, smiles, smiles. The dancing itself was a mix of the normal arena dance team moves and not-so-arena-like traditional Asian dance moves. The other group likewise was a mix of the normal stuff with what I would call Russian or Eastern European traditional dancing.
The Beijing Dream Performers were all men and were either what I called the Shaolin Basketball Troupe or more standard cheerleader types. The Shaolin group came in and did that kind of mock martial art fight dance thing, which was impressive, but did it while working in a basketball and dribbling. It was a little odd. Under the title of Dream Performers was also a group who did the circus dunks off a trampoline.
The last group of dead time performers were the mascots. Now most people think the Olympic mascots are cute. That may be, but seeing them in action as people in mascot suits jumping around, throwing t-shirts, doing the hand-to-the-nonexistent-ear I can’t hear you thing, well, it was disturbing.
Anyway, Mali lost horribly. We chatted and/or grunted with our seatmates, and then the Aussies showed up.
Game 2 — Australia vs Russia
Oh boy, did the Aussies show up.
We’ve seen 8 Olympic matches so far — 2 handball and 6 basketball — and I can say with confidence that no one does being a fan like the Aussies. The Germans were impressive during handball and the Chinese have overwhelming numbers for everything else, but the Aussies have a presence that can’t be denied or ignored.
We ended up sitting with of a small group, including LJ’s cousin, that was relatively calm compared to the one massive group who sat behind the Aussie bench. They have to have made it on the broadcast, because they were full on decked out with wigs, costumes, flags, face paint, blow-up kangaroos — you name it. Several big strapping guys were dressed up AS the team, complete with unitards and blond wigs. Now I know the players don’t necessarily like the unitards and I thought I had read that they were ditching them for normal basketball shorts and jerseys. Maybe later, because they’re still in them. Unfortunately for the rest of us in the stands, so were these guys… and they were going commando. Commando.
All I can say is that they grow them big down under.
Next to me (now between me and the elderly Chinese woman) was a young Aussie woman (I don’t recall her name, sorry) who was sporting a couple flags. In front was LJ’s cousin and a couple of her friends. All of them had on the Aussie colors. We ended up on the big screen 3 or 4 times because of the flags.
Ah, getting on the big screen. The Chinese are CRAZY about getting on the big screen. They go nuts when they get on and go to great lengths to get noticed by the camera people. It was a lot of fun to watch how excited some of them got, especially the very young kids and the older folks, and if whoever got on the screen actually did something like start dancing the rest of the crowd cheered like mad. The biggest cheers actually came when non-Chinese got up on the screen and either danced, like one Latvian guy did, or held up a Chinese flag. During the China/Czech game, that happened and the place erupted. An American guy sitting about 10 seats away from us had an American flag draped around his shoulders and was holding up a Chinese flag. The place went freakin’ nuts.
Back to the game.
We were sure to tell the Aussies around us who on their team we were cheering for and why. They of course agreed that LJ and Tully were brilliant, and that Penny and Snell were pretty good too. Once the game got underway, any of you who watched it know that it went from bad to ugly for the Aussies pretty quick. The Russians have always been accused of sandbagging in the early rounds to mask their game and to ambush their opponents in the later rounds. It certainly felt that way today, at least in the first half.
Becky Hammon, when she finally came in, took control and was hitting everything. The Aussie fans kept up their chants and cheers, but it didn’t seem to be helping much. It was about this time that the fairly large contingent of Russian fans made their presence known, chanting “Rus She Ah, Rus She Ah” (Russia pronounced as three, distinct syllables — something the other Eastern European fans did for Lat Vi Ah and Bel Ah Rus. I guess there’s something to be said about having a country name with three syllables ending in “ia.”). The Russians weren’t as garishly dressed as the Aussies, but they were flag waving fools to be sure.
Anyway, Russia was up at the half by 12, mostly on the shoulders of Hammon and Abrosimova.
Angie and I intended to yell “Brick” at Becky Hammon during any of her free throws. We totally blew our chance. She had two free throws in the second quarter and we were too busy watching the crowd or chatting with our neighbors and didn’t realize we missed our opportunity until she’d already shot the second free throw. There will be a next game.
The issue of Hammon getting on the Russian team came up with the other, non-US fans. They may not have known the specifics, but they all thought it was fishy at best and wrong at worst. They were mostly irked that she was the reason Russia was doing as well as they were. No short, blond, gum-smacking American on the team and the Aussies would be in control.
Well, even Becky couldn’t hold the whole game, especially when she ended up being benched most if not all of the third quarter. The Aussies came out and destroyed Russia in the second half 50-28. All of the Aussie big guns went off, including Snell who was red hot from the outside. All our attention was on LJ and Tully, but Snell came out firing. After the game, we got a chance to see some of the Aussie players up on the plaza and I talked to Snell a bit. I told her she needs to send a game tape of this game to the Phoenix coaching staff and tell them “See what I can do with some playing time.” She laughed and agreed.
After the game, LJ’s cousin took us over to LJ’s parents and we got to say hello to her mom, Maree who recognized us from the Storm games they’ve come to. All the Aussie fans congregated outside the arena in the plaza and were having a great time. There was a news crew from Australia there talking to the guys in the unitards. Chinese people were mobbing any Aussie in costume and wanting to get a picture taken with them. It was a little comical that any foreigner who had a flag or even the slightest bit of home color on them — face paint, shirt, flag, whatever — instantly drew a crown of Chinese wanting to get their photo taken with that person. The Aussies, who were be far decked out more than anyone we’ve seen, literally had Chinese lining up for photos.
Later, when some of the players started filing out to find their friends or family in the group, I thought they would get some attention from the Chinese. Not even a little bit. It was flag man with the tights for a souvenir shot, not Penny Taylor or Suzy Batkovic. As I said, I went up and talked to Snell a bit. I said hello to Screen and Suzy. We waited around until Tully came out and talked to her a bit too. I asked her what Jan Stirling said during half time and Tully smiled and said “We all needed to kick ourselves in the butt a bit.” As we were talking to her, I noticed Becky Hammon coming out.
She was alone — no other Russians came out through the plaza — and I think was meeting her family up there. She was pretty upset with how the game went and was talking about how the rest of the team wasn’t paying attention to defense or what she was telling them when she was in. I asked her about being benched when she was the one who really sparked them in the first half and she just shrugged and said she couldn’t do anything about the rotations. She left with her family, both knees covered in huge bags of ice.
We also spotted Lucianne Bertieau, a player who was at a Storm training camp a few years ago but didn’t make the team, or was on the team for a very short time (I can’t remember which year). She was there to see a friend play and had her 8-month old daughter with her. She says that she’s quit playing basketball now that she has a daughter.
Game 3 — Korea vs Latvia
For this game, our seats were down much closer to the court and were much nicer and cushy, although the leg room was still pretty tight. We were again sitting next to Americans, this time on both sides. There was a couple from New York next to me who were WNBA fans. Next to Angie was a mother and son from Seattle. They were a couple of the people who didn’t have all their tickets purchased ahead of the games and were getting them on the street as they went. Angie talked to them more so I’ll let her relate their story.
With the ladies next to me being big WNBA fans, it was almost like sitting at the Key watching a Storm game. Sarcastic comments were flying about the refs and horrible calls — and I do mean horrible. There were several out-of-bounds calls that were flat out missed, including one right in front of us and a ref in which a Latvian player bounced the ball fully outside the line. No call. They would allow body blows under the basket but call hand checking out on the perimeter. It was a mad house. MAD HOUSE.
This was actually a very important game for both teams. Win and you’re into the medal round. Lose and you’re out. Both the American and Chinese coaching staffs were scouting the game. Before the game started, Angie stood up (we were within about 2 sections of the athletes’ section where the coaches were sitting) and yelled for Coach Donovan. Angie had on a green Storm shirt with a big logo so she’d be visible. I think it was Dawn Staley who saw Angie and pointed her out to Coach D. All four coaches waved to us.
The game itself was dominated by the Koreans in almost every way early except for free throw shooting. If the Latvians hadn’t been getting to the line as often as they did, they would have been blown out. The Koreans are excellent shooters and were playing really tight team ball. The Latvians, not so much.
We were excited to Sung Jun Min playing for the Koreans. The season she spent on the Storm was mostly wasted due to injury and very little playing time. I can see now what Coach Donovan saw in her when Anne signed her. She is a strong court leader and besides her shooting was in there scrapping for rebounds and setting up plays.
The Latvians made a push late in the game, probably realizing they were playing themselves out of a chance for a medal, but couldn’t overcome the Korean lead.
Fan-wise, there were a few, vocal Latvians. There were more Koreans of course and they were pretty loud. The interesting thing about this game and crowd noise was when the Chinese started to boo during Korean free throws. It was the first boos any of us had heard and it was a little shocking.
The other thing that we really noticed during this and the next game, more so than before because we were in much better seats, was the amount of seat hopping that was going on. The Chinese seemed to think that their tickets were more of a suggestion than any real indication of where they were supposed to sit. If they saw an empty seat in a better position than where they currently were, it was a rush to see who could get there first. The ushers, who were plentiful, checked tickets every time we left our section or left the seating area for the concourse. Let me be more specific. They checked OUR tickets. They weren’t checking everyone’s tickets. I can tell you we’re looking at this experience a lot differently.
On the one hand, the Chinese officials are trying to control everything, but they actually control very little. There seems to be a game going on in which the rules are plentiful and carry heavy punishments if broken but are only enforced if you are really obvious about breaking them. The goal of the game is to see how far you can go before getting noticed. If you can do something, everyone around you sees that and start doing it too. Before the officials can react, it’s too late to do anything without going overboard. With so many outside eyes watching, overboard isn’t an option. So, you have blatant ticket scalping going on under the No Scalping signs. You have 5 ticket checks to go through to get to your assigned seat only to find three people pushing each other out of the way to take your seat.
After the game, I went down to right behind the scorers’ table and got the attention of the Chinese woman doing the public address work in Chinese and asked her if I could get a shot of her and the guy who was doing the English version. She thought it was a little odd, but I explained I was trying to take in the whole experience and wanted to get their photo since they were a big part of the games all day long. While we waited for the guy, who turns out to be the announcer for the Cleveland Cavaliers, she asked me questions about where I was from and how our stay in China was going so far. She had never heard of T-Mobile, my magenta overlord and client I work on most at the agency. Anyway, after finishing an announcement, the guy came up, was a little perplexed why anyone would want his photo and posed for me.
Game 4 — Brazil vs Belarus
Brazil got their first win and even though Belarus is still going into the medal round, I think they are going to get swallowed by whomever they play. They looked really bad. Brazil looked relieved to win a game. Who knows what might have been if Iziane hadn’t taken herself off the team.
Game 5 — China vs Czech Republic
They kick us out of the arena after each pair of games, so we waited out front once again. The crowds started piling into the plaza, eager to see their national team play. The Chinese people that we’ve seen at the events are almost giddy about their national team. Lining up outside to get in, scores of people were having their pictures taken with the basketball arena in the background to prove they were here. Again, any foreigner with a flag was getting stopped. I got stopped by a group of guys who may have thought I was a pro photographer since they were eyeing my camera and wanted to get their photo taken with me.
Inside, it was a sea of red. When the Chinese national anthem was played, the whole arena sang, some of the Chinese around us sang the song with a lot of force and emotion. This is a huge deal for them. Then Yao Ming showed up, as I described earlier, and the crowd went crazy.
They had one main cheer they did. It was a call and answer. One person would start and say the call phrase and the crowd would answer “Cha Yo.” I’m not sure what it meant, but it was going on all game long, sometimes in small groups and sometimes with the whole arena in unison. I felt a little sorry for the Czech players who had to face that. It was impressive and had to be daunting.
The Czech team didn’t really have a chance and, although they made a push at the end, got rolled by the Chinese.
During this game, we were surrounded by Chinese with some Aussies there to cheer for their “9th state” as they called New Zealand and an American guy from San Diego. This is his seventh Olympics, and he’s another one who is relying on street tickets to get into events. He was also an old hat at the seat hopping game. Once the China/Czech game was complete, he made a beeline for some new seats a little closer to the action for the US/NZ game.
Game 6 — USA vs New Zealand
I’m almost sorry to say this was the most boring game of the day. New Zealand played well to start, but the US steamrolled them. Angie and I both were pretty exhausted by 12 hours of basketball. She fell asleep and I was nodding off.
About half the crowd left, especially once the US got up by 20+. In terms of fan presence, there were a lot of Americans there, but very few were dressed up or waving flags. I’m going to keep an eye on that to see if there might be a trend. It definitely seems so far that just about every other country is perfectly comfortable being as nationalistic as they want to be, but not so much with the Americans we’ve seen. It will be interesting to see if that holds out with other events.
After the game, we yelled for Sue who gave us a wave. We found a taxi and headed for the hotel. 15 hours total from start to finish, our longest day yet (I’m writing this Monday morning).
I shot 2700 photos — about 40GB. I’ll try to post some highlights, but I’m already two days behind now. I knew this would happen, but with this kind of quantity and no days off it is inevitable.
Day 3 brings us a bike tour of the Hutongs near the Forbidden City and a semifinal women’s soccer game tonight. More basketball tomorrow.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Beijing Day 1 — A Great Day
It’s amazing what a little positive thinking can do for you.
As we got ready to go this morning, I kept telling Angie that today was going to be a good day. I was wrong.
It was a great day.
We started out at the breakfast buffet downstairs. The one good thing about our room here is that we get free breakfast each morning. After loading up (Angie stays with the western style foods, I’ve been trying some of the local stuff), we stopped by the Olympic info desk to check our directions for getting to the handball venue later in the afternoon and to get directions to our intended sightseeing stops for the day. Our goal was to use the subway and bus system to get around and not rely on taxis.
The nearest subway station is about a half hour walk from the hotel, so we set out. There is also a bus that can take us there, but since we’re not working out we decided we need the walking.
We found the subway station and successfully boarded the correct train going in the correct direction. In order to get to our first sightseeing spot of the day, we needed to transfer subway lines and catch a bus. With a little help from the ever-present volunteer info stations, we made it to our destination: Jingshan Park.
The main reason we picked this as our first excursion was mostly because it borders the back of the Forbidden City and allows you to see into that complex. We also felt like we needed a little calm and easy going relaxation after the frustrations of the day before. We really picked the right spot.
First off, this park is huge. It’s actually built on the earth excavated to create the moats around the Forbidden City. Those moats are massive, and so is the hill at the heart of the park. So massive that the temple pavilion at the top is the highest point in Beijing, not counting modern skyscrapers. The view was fantastic and you can indeed look down and into the Forbidden City. This spot seems to be a favorite for the locals as well as the tourists because the pavilion at the top was packed with people taking photos of the skyline.
On our way up and on our way down from the summit, we kept hearing chanting or singing coming up from the base of the hill. It is all heavily forested, so we couldn’t see what the sources of the sounds were. Once we got down, we found out.
All around the periphery of the park, there were pockets of people dancing/exercising, fan dancing, dancing with giant flowing ribbons, singing, playing what looked like hacky sack with giant shuttlecocks and other similar sorts of activities. None of it looked like it was scheduled entertainment. It looked like people just showed up and started dancing, or whatever. Very spontaneous, like this was the spot for community performing and anyone was welcome to join in.
The best group was on the back slope of the hill, amongst some boulders. There was a tight circle of people surrounding a small handful of women dancing to prerecorded music being broadcast on a small portable speaker. We watched for a couple songs and were about to move on when something wonderful happened. The next song started up and literally everyone pulled out a harmonica, drum, tambourine, maraca-type shaker or song book and joined in. The harmonica players even had personal amplifiers around their necks that we hadn’t noticed before. Even the kids were playing along. It was crazy. Both of us just kind of stood there with big grins on our faces, amazed at the sudden orchestra. We stayed for maybe 4 more songs before leaving.
A short distance away, we found a large open space in front of one of the gates leading into the park. There was a large group of people dancing/exercising to music. The odd thing about this group was that they were dancing to western music, like the Backstreet Boys. When “Bye, Bye, Bye” came up and they started doing some of the dance moves you normally find in boy band videos, Angie and I could only smile and shake our heads. It was by far the weirdest thing we saw today.
Next to these dancers were groups of people playing, for lack of the correct term, hacky sack with a giant badminton shuttlecock. These people were wicked good with that thing, doing kicks off their heels, from behind their backs and other moves that looked more like world-class soccer footwork than leisure exercise. Men, women, young and old were all playing.
One old guy that had me transfixed had a giant brush and was doing calligraphy on the paved walkways using water as his ink. The characters lasted until the water dried. It looked like he was doing people’s names, but I can’t be sure. At one point, he let a spectator give it a try. She didn’t do very well and once he got the brush back he started to tease her a bit. We couldn’t understand what he was saying, but from the reactions of the people watching, he was pretty funny and it seemed to be aimed at his “helper,” who was taking it with good humor.
Another group that was really fascinating was 5 older men who were twirling what looked like giant tops with a long length of string. As the tops spun faster, they started to make a low growl noise a lot like deep chanting. They were doing all sorts of tricks and really giving each other a lot of ribbing when one would mess up. It was pretty funny to watch them picking on each other. They obviously have been doing this together for a long time and were just waiting for each other to screw up so they could talk some trash.
After strolling through the park for a good three hours or so, we decided to hop back onto the buses and subways and make our way to our first Olympic event: 2 Men’s Handball matches at the Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium — France vs Spain and Germany vs Russia.
Getting there really was a snap. Getting through security was no big deal. The hardest part was the long walk from the subway to the venue. There is a special subway line that goes into the Olympic park, but our venue was closer to the beginning of the subway line than the next stop, so the volunteer guides told us it was easier and quicker to walk. Still, it felt like a good mile or so. Speaking of which, all together we logged almost 30,000 steps today according to Angie’s pedometer.
Of course, the whole time we were closing in on the entrance to the park, I was getting more and more excited. Angie had to ask me to slow down a couple times because I kept walking faster and faster. Right before we got to the main gates for the OSC, I spotted a piece of the Bird Cage poking above some trees. I was all like, “Ooh, ooh, the Bird Cage!” and started snapping photos even though I could only see an end of it. Then I noticed the Olympic Torch was there too. “The Torch! The Torch!” Yeah, I’ve got it bad.
Anyway, through security like I said – easy shmeasy. Angie did have to pull everything out of her back and pantomime a couple explanations for the bottle of ibuprophen she had in there. They understood enough to know it wasn’t lethal and let us through.
I was all like, “Dude, we’re at the Olympics!” and got a little verklempt. A little way up the path, I caught a better glimpse of the Bird Cage and had to stop and take some shots. Other people saw what I was doing and had to stop and shoot as well. At least I’m not alone in having it bad.
We had to go up next to the OSC Stadium which is all decked out for equestrian events and wind our way around to the Gymnasium. On the way, I saw a man walking past us with a big, fat Nikon on his neck and a camera bag on his hip. I stopped him and asked him about his camera — did security give him any problem getting it into the venue, how big was his lens, did he have other lenses in the bag? He answered no, big and lots. I shook his hand, explained how devastated I was to be told that I couldn’t bring my camera into the venues and thanked him for his time.
I did a happy dance. A spontaneous expression of glee. Literally, I danced.
This frightened my wife a bit.
It was such a blow to be told I couldn’t use my camera. One of my coworkers commented that taking photos is my thing, it’s what I do. To not have that, while not spoiling this trip because this trip was about so much more than photos, did put a wet blanket on everything. To have my camera back was worth a little jig on the pathway to the gymnasium.
Buoyed by this news, we hurried to our venue. After a short wait, we entered the Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium and our first Olympic event.
First thing we did (and by the way, I was second in line to get in), was to do a quick walk around the concourse. This was not a western style arena. The concourse was really all on one side. The ends of the arena and back side only had a small walkway and restrooms. The only concessions or souvenir booths were next to the front entrance. This made sense once we got into the seating area. Most of the spectator seating was on one side. The opposite side was sectioned off for media, the many TV cameras, photographers and what I assumed to be dignitary seating. There was really very little room for spectator seating, so no reason to have a lot of amenities on that side of the building.
We went back out and cruised the merch booth. Definitely some possibilities with some t-shirts and magnets. We have to have our magnets. We ended up getting a set of the mascots as magnets. Keen.
The concessions were… interesting. Their concept of a hot dog gets a little lost in translation. I didn’t think to photograph the hot dog. I will next time because describing it won’t give you the full impact. Let me say that it was served cold, in packaging with the ketchup already squirted on. Like I said, you need to see it.
They also offered bread. Not a bread roll or a bun without the burger, no an actual small loaf of bread.
Of course, you could get beer. The Germans were double fisting the stuff.
Once inside, we found our seats — up high and in a corner. That’s B level seating for you. The arena was small enough that we still felt like we had a good enough view. It was analogous to being in about row 14 above the tunnel where the Storm enter the court at KeyArena. We had a German couple in front of us, a Thai family next to us, more Germans behind us, a group of Chinese school kids to the other side and an Indian couple in front next to the Germans. Excellent.
Before things got underway, I noticed that the Germans in front had a DSLR camera with a big ass lens. I went down and talked to them a bit and sure enough they got in with no problems. Life is good.
The pregame entertainment was a group of Chinese kids playing handball along with a cheerleading group called the Beijing Honeys — I am not kidding — and the Olympic mascots dancing about. While that freakshow was going on, the big scoreboards on either end of the arena had computer animated clips of the mascots dancing around and leading cheers. On top of that, the announcements were given in Mandarin, as expected, and English… with a Texan accent.
Believe me when I say it was all a little surreal.
Finally, the first two teams were introduced and the match began.
I won’t go into a play-by-play since this was televised and is available to view online. Plus, I didn’t take notes. All I can do is give you some impressions.
Having never seen handball before, I can say that it was pretty exciting to watch. A mix of basketball, soccer and hockey played with a small, palmable ball and a big net. There is a ton of physical contact including bone-jarring picks, high flying leaps with Jordan-quality hang time and lightning fast scoring. These guys were just throwing their bodies around and were able to get the ball into the net with incredible accuracy. Sometimes it seemed like it didn’t matter whether the goalie was paying attention or not, the ball went into the net.
France was heavily favored in the first match and really put a hurting on Spain through most of the game. Spain made up some ground in the second half but couldn’t get it any closer than 4. They kept piling up the penalties and France took advantage. The French team won it fairly easily.
There weren’t a lot of French or Spanish fans in the stands, at least not obviously so. I would say there were maybe 20 French fans with flags or costumes and about half that for Spain. After the match, two of the French fans who were dressed up with blue afro wigs, red clown noses and French flags as caps were real hits with the Chinese spectators. Everyone wanted a picture with those guys and they were happy to oblige. One Spanish fan who was also sporting a flag cape kept butting in, but was doing it out of fun. The French guys were giving him a bad time and he was joking back at them. Everyone was smiling, even those who didn’t understand what was being said because it all looked so silly.
The second match was Germany and Russia. The Germans came with a huge group of fans, probably a good couple hundred with flags, hats, capes, horns, giant foam hands, and just about anything with the German colors on it. They also did a lot of chants. Most of them sat in the section right behind the German bench. While that was good for the Germans, it was a little interesting how they all ended up there since the tickets were supposedly given out by lottery. There were fewer Russian fans, but there were also really vocal. All of that coupled with a tight match made for some exciting handball.
Germany came out strong and in control, but Russia kept finding ways to score and didn’t let the Germans get too far out in front. The game was tied or close to it most of the way. Both teams were really good and were really pushing each other. There were some flat out amazing shots with the offensive players getting mugged by two or three defenders, going down to the court and still finding a way to squirt the ball in past the goalie. Or the offensive player extending full horizontal to the floor and flipping the ball in just before hitting the deck. They were bouncing it between the goalies’ legs, looping it over their heads and doing all sorts of acrobatics to get the advantage.
One play by the Germans sticks out. One guy went in full blast and was cranking back to fire the ball into the net just as a second player jumps up with a different attack angle to the goal. The first player, right before he fell to the floor, flipped the ball up to the second player who was just then at the top of his jump who then did a cannon shot into the net right past the goalie who was still recovering from trying to block the first German shooter. It was like a handball alley oop and had the whole arena rocking. It didn’t matter if you knew anything about handball or not, that was one pretty play.
The two teams traded goals down the stretch, but no one could take control and the game ended in a tie. Angie was looking for overtime, but since this was pool play they took the tie and that was it.
What a good way to start our Olympic experience — watching a sport neither of us had ever seen, surrounded by people from 5 countries and getting a match that was down to the wire pushed along by hundreds of flag waving crazies. Seriously cool.
I almost forgot the last camera sighting. During the second match, I saw not one, not two but three people in a group each with a big freakin’ lens — two of which are exactly like the big freakin’ lens I have. I went down to talk to them. They were a Thai family and yes each had their own DSLR with 70-200mm lenses. Again, I asked if they had any problems and they said no. They had been to the Bird Cage the day before with no problems and had no issues getting into this venue either. All in all, I saw at least 10 people with big cameras and lenses at this event.
A pattern has emerged when it comes to the rules. If you ask, they will say no. If you just do it, they won’t bother you. At the match, there were two German fans with enormous flags that stretched across 5 or 6 seats. The spectator rules state very clearly that oversize flags and signs are not permitted. Sure enough a couple ushers came down and tried to take away the flags. The Germans argued and the ushers left. The flags stayed.
Earlier, we noticed that there were a lot of open seats. I went down and asked if we could move down once the match started an no one took the seats. I was told no. Of course, half the people around us got up and moved closer during the match.
When I asked about my camera, I was told no. All of the people in the stands with cameras took them in and didn’t act like they weren’t allowed to. They got in.
I don’t know if I’m ready to generalize this, but the pattern is real. Don’t ask permission, just do it like you know what you’re doing and they’ll leave you alone.
Anyway, back to my ginormous post.
Sounds like a full day, right? Getting around on the subway, going to the park, our first Olympic event — a great day. Well, it wasn’t quite done yet. There was still a little matter of finding some scorpions on a stick. That’s right. After the matches were complete, we went looking for the Night Market and some bugs on sticks.
Again, with a little advice along the way from a helpful passerby, we found the Night Market. It was packed, but we were able to stroll from stall to stall, looking for the scorpions and deciding what to try. Good lord it all smelled so good. The vendors were all hyper aggressive, trying to lure us in to buy their specialties. True to the advertising, there was all sorts of weird stuff on sticks: silk worms, snake, starfish, crickets, normal kinds of meat like chicken or beef, octopus (and not that little stuff that you usually get as calamari, I’m talking full on take-down-the-Nautilus squid), intestines, testicles and just about every other normally non-edible substance. As long as it fit on a stick and could be fried, you could buy it.
First off, because I was starving and it smelled way too good, I got a pile of pot stickers. I may never have pot stickers again back home. They can never taste as good as these ones did. Angie was being picky and unadventurous and went for some noodles. Whatever, rookie.
We got about 3/4ths of the way down the row before spotting the scorpions. Only one vendor had them, and he had two varieties — the small tan ones and the big black ones. The big ones were 50 Yuan, which seemed a bit steep, so I went for the smaller ones. He fried up a stick, which had three scorpions on it, and handed it over.
I’ll admit to being a little apprehensive. After all, these were scorpions with their claws and stingers attached. In fact, the first time I put one up to my mouth, I poked my lip with a claw. With Angie snapping away with the camera, in the first one went.
Crunchy. The claws and legs kind of poked the inside of my mouth as I chewed. I had to work the body off the stick a bit, and then the tail. Overall, not bad. It tasted a little like the skin off of fried chicken. I polished off the other two, making sure Angie was able to get a shot of one of the stingers sticking out between my lips, just for visual impact.
Mission accomplished, my friends. I ate scorpions on a stick.
Photos to come (and since I have to get up in 4 hours to get ready for our first full day — full meaning 15 hours worth — of basketball, photos will be coming much later, sorry). I’ll try to post a few highlights as soon as I can.
That was a great day.
As we got ready to go this morning, I kept telling Angie that today was going to be a good day. I was wrong.
It was a great day.
We started out at the breakfast buffet downstairs. The one good thing about our room here is that we get free breakfast each morning. After loading up (Angie stays with the western style foods, I’ve been trying some of the local stuff), we stopped by the Olympic info desk to check our directions for getting to the handball venue later in the afternoon and to get directions to our intended sightseeing stops for the day. Our goal was to use the subway and bus system to get around and not rely on taxis.
The nearest subway station is about a half hour walk from the hotel, so we set out. There is also a bus that can take us there, but since we’re not working out we decided we need the walking.
We found the subway station and successfully boarded the correct train going in the correct direction. In order to get to our first sightseeing spot of the day, we needed to transfer subway lines and catch a bus. With a little help from the ever-present volunteer info stations, we made it to our destination: Jingshan Park.
The main reason we picked this as our first excursion was mostly because it borders the back of the Forbidden City and allows you to see into that complex. We also felt like we needed a little calm and easy going relaxation after the frustrations of the day before. We really picked the right spot.
First off, this park is huge. It’s actually built on the earth excavated to create the moats around the Forbidden City. Those moats are massive, and so is the hill at the heart of the park. So massive that the temple pavilion at the top is the highest point in Beijing, not counting modern skyscrapers. The view was fantastic and you can indeed look down and into the Forbidden City. This spot seems to be a favorite for the locals as well as the tourists because the pavilion at the top was packed with people taking photos of the skyline.
On our way up and on our way down from the summit, we kept hearing chanting or singing coming up from the base of the hill. It is all heavily forested, so we couldn’t see what the sources of the sounds were. Once we got down, we found out.
All around the periphery of the park, there were pockets of people dancing/exercising, fan dancing, dancing with giant flowing ribbons, singing, playing what looked like hacky sack with giant shuttlecocks and other similar sorts of activities. None of it looked like it was scheduled entertainment. It looked like people just showed up and started dancing, or whatever. Very spontaneous, like this was the spot for community performing and anyone was welcome to join in.
The best group was on the back slope of the hill, amongst some boulders. There was a tight circle of people surrounding a small handful of women dancing to prerecorded music being broadcast on a small portable speaker. We watched for a couple songs and were about to move on when something wonderful happened. The next song started up and literally everyone pulled out a harmonica, drum, tambourine, maraca-type shaker or song book and joined in. The harmonica players even had personal amplifiers around their necks that we hadn’t noticed before. Even the kids were playing along. It was crazy. Both of us just kind of stood there with big grins on our faces, amazed at the sudden orchestra. We stayed for maybe 4 more songs before leaving.
A short distance away, we found a large open space in front of one of the gates leading into the park. There was a large group of people dancing/exercising to music. The odd thing about this group was that they were dancing to western music, like the Backstreet Boys. When “Bye, Bye, Bye” came up and they started doing some of the dance moves you normally find in boy band videos, Angie and I could only smile and shake our heads. It was by far the weirdest thing we saw today.
Next to these dancers were groups of people playing, for lack of the correct term, hacky sack with a giant badminton shuttlecock. These people were wicked good with that thing, doing kicks off their heels, from behind their backs and other moves that looked more like world-class soccer footwork than leisure exercise. Men, women, young and old were all playing.
One old guy that had me transfixed had a giant brush and was doing calligraphy on the paved walkways using water as his ink. The characters lasted until the water dried. It looked like he was doing people’s names, but I can’t be sure. At one point, he let a spectator give it a try. She didn’t do very well and once he got the brush back he started to tease her a bit. We couldn’t understand what he was saying, but from the reactions of the people watching, he was pretty funny and it seemed to be aimed at his “helper,” who was taking it with good humor.
Another group that was really fascinating was 5 older men who were twirling what looked like giant tops with a long length of string. As the tops spun faster, they started to make a low growl noise a lot like deep chanting. They were doing all sorts of tricks and really giving each other a lot of ribbing when one would mess up. It was pretty funny to watch them picking on each other. They obviously have been doing this together for a long time and were just waiting for each other to screw up so they could talk some trash.
After strolling through the park for a good three hours or so, we decided to hop back onto the buses and subways and make our way to our first Olympic event: 2 Men’s Handball matches at the Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium — France vs Spain and Germany vs Russia.
Getting there really was a snap. Getting through security was no big deal. The hardest part was the long walk from the subway to the venue. There is a special subway line that goes into the Olympic park, but our venue was closer to the beginning of the subway line than the next stop, so the volunteer guides told us it was easier and quicker to walk. Still, it felt like a good mile or so. Speaking of which, all together we logged almost 30,000 steps today according to Angie’s pedometer.
Of course, the whole time we were closing in on the entrance to the park, I was getting more and more excited. Angie had to ask me to slow down a couple times because I kept walking faster and faster. Right before we got to the main gates for the OSC, I spotted a piece of the Bird Cage poking above some trees. I was all like, “Ooh, ooh, the Bird Cage!” and started snapping photos even though I could only see an end of it. Then I noticed the Olympic Torch was there too. “The Torch! The Torch!” Yeah, I’ve got it bad.
Anyway, through security like I said – easy shmeasy. Angie did have to pull everything out of her back and pantomime a couple explanations for the bottle of ibuprophen she had in there. They understood enough to know it wasn’t lethal and let us through.
I was all like, “Dude, we’re at the Olympics!” and got a little verklempt. A little way up the path, I caught a better glimpse of the Bird Cage and had to stop and take some shots. Other people saw what I was doing and had to stop and shoot as well. At least I’m not alone in having it bad.
We had to go up next to the OSC Stadium which is all decked out for equestrian events and wind our way around to the Gymnasium. On the way, I saw a man walking past us with a big, fat Nikon on his neck and a camera bag on his hip. I stopped him and asked him about his camera — did security give him any problem getting it into the venue, how big was his lens, did he have other lenses in the bag? He answered no, big and lots. I shook his hand, explained how devastated I was to be told that I couldn’t bring my camera into the venues and thanked him for his time.
I did a happy dance. A spontaneous expression of glee. Literally, I danced.
This frightened my wife a bit.
It was such a blow to be told I couldn’t use my camera. One of my coworkers commented that taking photos is my thing, it’s what I do. To not have that, while not spoiling this trip because this trip was about so much more than photos, did put a wet blanket on everything. To have my camera back was worth a little jig on the pathway to the gymnasium.
Buoyed by this news, we hurried to our venue. After a short wait, we entered the Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium and our first Olympic event.
First thing we did (and by the way, I was second in line to get in), was to do a quick walk around the concourse. This was not a western style arena. The concourse was really all on one side. The ends of the arena and back side only had a small walkway and restrooms. The only concessions or souvenir booths were next to the front entrance. This made sense once we got into the seating area. Most of the spectator seating was on one side. The opposite side was sectioned off for media, the many TV cameras, photographers and what I assumed to be dignitary seating. There was really very little room for spectator seating, so no reason to have a lot of amenities on that side of the building.
We went back out and cruised the merch booth. Definitely some possibilities with some t-shirts and magnets. We have to have our magnets. We ended up getting a set of the mascots as magnets. Keen.
The concessions were… interesting. Their concept of a hot dog gets a little lost in translation. I didn’t think to photograph the hot dog. I will next time because describing it won’t give you the full impact. Let me say that it was served cold, in packaging with the ketchup already squirted on. Like I said, you need to see it.
They also offered bread. Not a bread roll or a bun without the burger, no an actual small loaf of bread.
Of course, you could get beer. The Germans were double fisting the stuff.
Once inside, we found our seats — up high and in a corner. That’s B level seating for you. The arena was small enough that we still felt like we had a good enough view. It was analogous to being in about row 14 above the tunnel where the Storm enter the court at KeyArena. We had a German couple in front of us, a Thai family next to us, more Germans behind us, a group of Chinese school kids to the other side and an Indian couple in front next to the Germans. Excellent.
Before things got underway, I noticed that the Germans in front had a DSLR camera with a big ass lens. I went down and talked to them a bit and sure enough they got in with no problems. Life is good.
The pregame entertainment was a group of Chinese kids playing handball along with a cheerleading group called the Beijing Honeys — I am not kidding — and the Olympic mascots dancing about. While that freakshow was going on, the big scoreboards on either end of the arena had computer animated clips of the mascots dancing around and leading cheers. On top of that, the announcements were given in Mandarin, as expected, and English… with a Texan accent.
Believe me when I say it was all a little surreal.
Finally, the first two teams were introduced and the match began.
I won’t go into a play-by-play since this was televised and is available to view online. Plus, I didn’t take notes. All I can do is give you some impressions.
Having never seen handball before, I can say that it was pretty exciting to watch. A mix of basketball, soccer and hockey played with a small, palmable ball and a big net. There is a ton of physical contact including bone-jarring picks, high flying leaps with Jordan-quality hang time and lightning fast scoring. These guys were just throwing their bodies around and were able to get the ball into the net with incredible accuracy. Sometimes it seemed like it didn’t matter whether the goalie was paying attention or not, the ball went into the net.
France was heavily favored in the first match and really put a hurting on Spain through most of the game. Spain made up some ground in the second half but couldn’t get it any closer than 4. They kept piling up the penalties and France took advantage. The French team won it fairly easily.
There weren’t a lot of French or Spanish fans in the stands, at least not obviously so. I would say there were maybe 20 French fans with flags or costumes and about half that for Spain. After the match, two of the French fans who were dressed up with blue afro wigs, red clown noses and French flags as caps were real hits with the Chinese spectators. Everyone wanted a picture with those guys and they were happy to oblige. One Spanish fan who was also sporting a flag cape kept butting in, but was doing it out of fun. The French guys were giving him a bad time and he was joking back at them. Everyone was smiling, even those who didn’t understand what was being said because it all looked so silly.
The second match was Germany and Russia. The Germans came with a huge group of fans, probably a good couple hundred with flags, hats, capes, horns, giant foam hands, and just about anything with the German colors on it. They also did a lot of chants. Most of them sat in the section right behind the German bench. While that was good for the Germans, it was a little interesting how they all ended up there since the tickets were supposedly given out by lottery. There were fewer Russian fans, but there were also really vocal. All of that coupled with a tight match made for some exciting handball.
Germany came out strong and in control, but Russia kept finding ways to score and didn’t let the Germans get too far out in front. The game was tied or close to it most of the way. Both teams were really good and were really pushing each other. There were some flat out amazing shots with the offensive players getting mugged by two or three defenders, going down to the court and still finding a way to squirt the ball in past the goalie. Or the offensive player extending full horizontal to the floor and flipping the ball in just before hitting the deck. They were bouncing it between the goalies’ legs, looping it over their heads and doing all sorts of acrobatics to get the advantage.
One play by the Germans sticks out. One guy went in full blast and was cranking back to fire the ball into the net just as a second player jumps up with a different attack angle to the goal. The first player, right before he fell to the floor, flipped the ball up to the second player who was just then at the top of his jump who then did a cannon shot into the net right past the goalie who was still recovering from trying to block the first German shooter. It was like a handball alley oop and had the whole arena rocking. It didn’t matter if you knew anything about handball or not, that was one pretty play.
The two teams traded goals down the stretch, but no one could take control and the game ended in a tie. Angie was looking for overtime, but since this was pool play they took the tie and that was it.
What a good way to start our Olympic experience — watching a sport neither of us had ever seen, surrounded by people from 5 countries and getting a match that was down to the wire pushed along by hundreds of flag waving crazies. Seriously cool.
I almost forgot the last camera sighting. During the second match, I saw not one, not two but three people in a group each with a big freakin’ lens — two of which are exactly like the big freakin’ lens I have. I went down to talk to them. They were a Thai family and yes each had their own DSLR with 70-200mm lenses. Again, I asked if they had any problems and they said no. They had been to the Bird Cage the day before with no problems and had no issues getting into this venue either. All in all, I saw at least 10 people with big cameras and lenses at this event.
A pattern has emerged when it comes to the rules. If you ask, they will say no. If you just do it, they won’t bother you. At the match, there were two German fans with enormous flags that stretched across 5 or 6 seats. The spectator rules state very clearly that oversize flags and signs are not permitted. Sure enough a couple ushers came down and tried to take away the flags. The Germans argued and the ushers left. The flags stayed.
Earlier, we noticed that there were a lot of open seats. I went down and asked if we could move down once the match started an no one took the seats. I was told no. Of course, half the people around us got up and moved closer during the match.
When I asked about my camera, I was told no. All of the people in the stands with cameras took them in and didn’t act like they weren’t allowed to. They got in.
I don’t know if I’m ready to generalize this, but the pattern is real. Don’t ask permission, just do it like you know what you’re doing and they’ll leave you alone.
Anyway, back to my ginormous post.
Sounds like a full day, right? Getting around on the subway, going to the park, our first Olympic event — a great day. Well, it wasn’t quite done yet. There was still a little matter of finding some scorpions on a stick. That’s right. After the matches were complete, we went looking for the Night Market and some bugs on sticks.
Again, with a little advice along the way from a helpful passerby, we found the Night Market. It was packed, but we were able to stroll from stall to stall, looking for the scorpions and deciding what to try. Good lord it all smelled so good. The vendors were all hyper aggressive, trying to lure us in to buy their specialties. True to the advertising, there was all sorts of weird stuff on sticks: silk worms, snake, starfish, crickets, normal kinds of meat like chicken or beef, octopus (and not that little stuff that you usually get as calamari, I’m talking full on take-down-the-Nautilus squid), intestines, testicles and just about every other normally non-edible substance. As long as it fit on a stick and could be fried, you could buy it.
First off, because I was starving and it smelled way too good, I got a pile of pot stickers. I may never have pot stickers again back home. They can never taste as good as these ones did. Angie was being picky and unadventurous and went for some noodles. Whatever, rookie.
We got about 3/4ths of the way down the row before spotting the scorpions. Only one vendor had them, and he had two varieties — the small tan ones and the big black ones. The big ones were 50 Yuan, which seemed a bit steep, so I went for the smaller ones. He fried up a stick, which had three scorpions on it, and handed it over.
I’ll admit to being a little apprehensive. After all, these were scorpions with their claws and stingers attached. In fact, the first time I put one up to my mouth, I poked my lip with a claw. With Angie snapping away with the camera, in the first one went.
Crunchy. The claws and legs kind of poked the inside of my mouth as I chewed. I had to work the body off the stick a bit, and then the tail. Overall, not bad. It tasted a little like the skin off of fried chicken. I polished off the other two, making sure Angie was able to get a shot of one of the stingers sticking out between my lips, just for visual impact.
Mission accomplished, my friends. I ate scorpions on a stick.
Photos to come (and since I have to get up in 4 hours to get ready for our first full day — full meaning 15 hours worth — of basketball, photos will be coming much later, sorry). I’ll try to post a few highlights as soon as I can.
That was a great day.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)