Olympics - Day 1

Wow, is all I can say about our whirlwind of an experience at the Beijing Olympics!! In Shanghai, you can feel the "Olympic fever" but not like what we experienced in Beijing!!!

Monday we went to our first venue - Men's Basketball - Preliminary Round - Australia vs Lithuania. The crowds reaction to plays was great & Lithuania had a big fan base, which made for some great entertainment! Australia ended up beating Lithuania.

In the evening, we went to gymnastics to watch the finals in men's rings & vault and the women's uneven bars & trampoline. I love watching gymnastics & seeing it live & a handful of rows up was neat! USA was only in one event & that was the controversial silver medal won by Nastia Liukin.

Just in case you were wondering.....China did a great job with security - they even had me laughing as I had to 'test' all the different products in my purse (babypowder, anti-bacterial hand sanitizer, lipgloss, lotion). I felt like a white, pretty smelling multi-colored lipped lady by the time I was through security!!!

Hope you enjoyed Day 1...more to come!!!

At the Olympics: Beach VB

again from the mobile...we are at Chaoyang Stadium watching women's beach volleyball. We just finished watching Team USA (Walsh/May) crush Brazil in the semifinal. Now the Chinese women are playing and winner goes against the US. The weather is sunny and clear, around 82 degrees. Tonight we head for soccer...Brazil vs. Argentina semifinal...should be fun!

At The Olympics:Day 1

I am writing this from a cab on the way back from dinnerusing my mobile phone...so no pics and brief. We saw Lithunia get whopped by Australia this morning and saw gymnastics tonight. The venues are very cool with throngs of Chinese outside waiting to get a glimpse of the games...more to come...

First Taste of the Olympics

More pics at: http://picasaweb.google.com/krfraser5/Olympics2008_ShanghaiFootball

Before Kim and I head off to Beijing later this afternoon for three days of the Olympics, the boys and I got our first taste of the Olympics last night, going to the quarterfinal soccer match between Netherlands and Argentina held at Shanghai stadium. The match was exciting with Argentina winning in overtime. We also got a ticket for our driver, Mr. He, as he enjoys soccer and is a Netherlands fan. Turned out to be a good addition to our group as he helped get us their quickly and saved about an hour on getting a taxi when thousands of other fans were trying to get one as well after the game. It was our first mass sporting event in China and proved to be interesting on several fronts. The Chinese audience was very attuned to what was going on anywhere in the stadium, getting excited when Argentina fans would start chanting and straining to see and get pictures of Diego Maradona when he made a guest appearance. They were very aware of what constitutes good plays in soccer and were vocal all through the match. One thing they cannot do is the wave, after attending many Michigan games where the fans do waves in two directions and do a slow wave and a quick wave, this was quite different. The fans tried to start a wave about 15-20 times and none of the attempts created a successful wave that completed even a half loop of the stadium. The Chinese fans need some practice. One big difference between US sports events is stadium food prices. Four 20 oz. sodas plus snicker bars for 4 ran just under $6 USD. One odd description of a menu item was "Puffing food". I asked what this was and was shown a choice of potato chips or some other similar food. I guess the Chinese consider this food to puff you up...true I suppose...and good example of Chinglish.

Here are a couple pics: