Countdown beijing - A Day Off
I opened my eyes this morning and saw black mold growing on my ceiling right above my head. Not good especially since we are going to be here for another 3 weeks. I immediately reported it to the cleaning crew and before I left for breakfast they had building manager in here inspecting it. In broken English he told me that they would fix it but that it would take a half of a day. I told him that was not a problem since we would be out and about for most of the day.
After eating breakfast in the dining hall (which seems to be even more crowded today) we all jumped on an 11:00 am bus to Tiananmen Square. The bus ride took about 30 minutes even with the Olympic lane. This is a dedicated lane that only official Olympic vehicles can drive in. The traffic seems to be getting worse and they have odd even driving days established in order to keep the traffic down. Today (August 5) is an odd day - so only vehicles with their license plates ending with odd numbers are suppose to be on the road.
It seemed strange that Tiananmen Square was all decked out in Olympic décor. They have turned it into an Olympic park for the Games. Thousands of people were sightseeing like us (mostly Chinese) and in the middle of the Square in now a giant Olympic monument. I took a few pictures and then we made our way into the Forbidden City. Robert Lynn (who can’t say no to the Chinese) hired a tour guide named Mary. She did a nice job and helped explain many of the building and symbols we were looking at. For instance, any building with 9 animals on the corner of the roof line was an emperor’s building; a building with 7 animals was the emperor’s wife. And it all went down from there. It was pretty cool although with each layer we
walked into there seemed to be more and more of the same. We walked up to one of the watch towers at the end of the tour and took the attached picture with our staff. In the background is the entire Forbidden City.
Our next stop was the Silk Market. This is like a giant swap meet except for the fact that the vendors are extremely aggressive. Poor Robert (remember he can’t say no) shopped until he dropped and he went home with a HUGE bag of goods. I ended up getting a suit made for a
great price. I also tried on a beautiful formal Chinese jacket but decided against it. I am glad that I can say no.
On the bus ride back home the traffic was once again very bad. About half way home a small car veered into the Olympic lane and smashed into our bus. No one was injured but it caused a big stir. Before long we were on the side of the road with 6-7 police vehicles all taking pictures and berating the driver of the small vehicle. It was a 45 minute ordeal and we finally made it back to the village just in time for dinner.
I was exhausted when I finally arrived back in my room. I was ready to just read a few pages of my book and go to bed. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that my room was to be “fixed”. As I opened my little “cubby”, I was just about thrown back from the smell of paint. They had fixed the ceiling - put up some new drywall and given the work a nice coat or two of some of the finest “lead based” paint they could find. I opened up all the windows in the place and aired it out. In a few hours it was not so bad and I was ready for some more Olympic dreams… Good night.
See you at the pool!
Coach
After eating breakfast in the dining hall (which seems to be even more crowded today) we all jumped on an 11:00 am bus to Tiananmen Square. The bus ride took about 30 minutes even with the Olympic lane. This is a dedicated lane that only official Olympic vehicles can drive in. The traffic seems to be getting worse and they have odd even driving days established in order to keep the traffic down. Today (August 5) is an odd day - so only vehicles with their license plates ending with odd numbers are suppose to be on the road.
It seemed strange that Tiananmen Square was all decked out in Olympic décor. They have turned it into an Olympic park for the Games. Thousands of people were sightseeing like us (mostly Chinese) and in the middle of the Square in now a giant Olympic monument. I took a few pictures and then we made our way into the Forbidden City. Robert Lynn (who can’t say no to the Chinese) hired a tour guide named Mary. She did a nice job and helped explain many of the building and symbols we were looking at. For instance, any building with 9 animals on the corner of the roof line was an emperor’s building; a building with 7 animals was the emperor’s wife. And it all went down from there. It was pretty cool although with each layer we
walked into there seemed to be more and more of the same. We walked up to one of the watch towers at the end of the tour and took the attached picture with our staff. In the background is the entire Forbidden City.Our next stop was the Silk Market. This is like a giant swap meet except for the fact that the vendors are extremely aggressive. Poor Robert (remember he can’t say no) shopped until he dropped and he went home with a HUGE bag of goods. I ended up getting a suit made for a
great price. I also tried on a beautiful formal Chinese jacket but decided against it. I am glad that I can say no.On the bus ride back home the traffic was once again very bad. About half way home a small car veered into the Olympic lane and smashed into our bus. No one was injured but it caused a big stir. Before long we were on the side of the road with 6-7 police vehicles all taking pictures and berating the driver of the small vehicle. It was a 45 minute ordeal and we finally made it back to the village just in time for dinner.
I was exhausted when I finally arrived back in my room. I was ready to just read a few pages of my book and go to bed. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that my room was to be “fixed”. As I opened my little “cubby”, I was just about thrown back from the smell of paint. They had fixed the ceiling - put up some new drywall and given the work a nice coat or two of some of the finest “lead based” paint they could find. I opened up all the windows in the place and aired it out. In a few hours it was not so bad and I was ready for some more Olympic dreams… Good night.
See you at the pool!
Coach
posted by Dr. Terry Schroeder at
7:50 PM
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