Blistering Hot

Yesterday we had the good fortune to spend the day in the Birds nest watching the men's decathlon event and, luckily, it was combined with the men's 50K walk race. Our event began at 7:30 am and lasted until 4 p.m., that makes for a very long day.

We awoke at 4:30 to get up and get ready to head out to the Olympic Green to see our event. After our past experience of traveling to the east end of the city on the subway, I decided to check out the subway map only to discover that there is a special Olympic bus one subway stop away from where we are staying. This is a preferable mode of transport as it places us above ground and provides a very nice view of yet another part of the beautiful, vast and sprawling city.

Security at the guesthouse is exemplary and entails recording our every exit and entry to the guesthouse, this does however not bode well for the staff as my sleeping habits and our Olympic events sometimes cause them to record our movements t 4 or 5 in the morning. The staff however is the most pleasant and helpful group of people you could ever want to meet. Of course, this causes a great deal of guilt for me when I disturb them. With this in mind, Lori and I wend downstairs for a cigarette (you can smoke in the rooms but we can not bring ourselves to do this) at 4:40 and disturbed the Front Desk Staff who had to unlock the outside door for us so that we could smoke.

Tea in hand and cigarettes in our pocket, off we went to sit in front and have a cigarette or two. The day, at 4:40 was going to be warm, it was already feeling a little hot.

Now that we were awake, it was time to shower and head out to the Olympic Bus. It was pure luck, as we arrived at the bus stop, our bus arrived and there were only about 10 people in front of us. Lori and I managed to get a seat facing each other with a window (the busses are not air conditioned). The further on into our adventure the more evident it became that we were not traveling the way most westerners do, we were, again, the only caucasians on the bus. This makes for a much better and more interesting ride. Although the bus is a special Olympic bus, the locals take it as an express bus to various places along the bus route.



Once past security and inside the park, we made a beeline for McDonalds (the only place to get a breakfast of any sort in the park) for a Sausage McMuffin, Hash Browns and COFFEE. The coffee was the only thing we really wanted, but we did need some form of sustenance. Part of this sustenance involved our second serving of Orange Juice to combat the grease from the Egg McMuffin (they had no more Sausage McMuffin) and the Hash Browns.

Now it was time for the trek back south in the park to go to the Birds nest. Although it was 7:30 in the morning, the sun was beating down on us as though we were stranded in a desert, my only comparison is the sun and the heat in Morocco and this felt much hotter.



Our seats were in Tier 3 but on Floor 5. With no escalator in sight and the stairs up 5 floors staring me in the face and taunting me to test my Honey Dew mellon sized knee, I turned to a volunteer and asked if there was a lift we could use. With the sweetest smile and all the kindness we have been experiencing everywhere, she said 'My colleague straight ahead will help you'. So off we went to her colleague who, upon my request for the lift, escorted us to the lift and pressed the button for us. As the door was closing, another volunteer brought two elderly ladies into the lift who where going to our same floor. As we rode up, I stood back to allow the ladies off of the lift only to find them heading towards the stairs, I called them back and directed them to the exit to the 5th floor concourse where Lori and I were going. Holding the lift doors, allowing the ladies to exit first and correcting their direction into the venue, these ladies could say nothing but smile with a beautiful kind smile and say xiexie (thank you) about 5 times. As we exited the lift we went to the outer portion of the concourse to search for rest rooms only to discover an amazing view of the Water Cube.



The Birds Nest was amazing, Watching the Italian win the Walk Race and hearing the Chinese Cheer for every country involved was an amazing experience. Our seats were great, we could see absolutely everything on the field. In between events, a troupe of 10 cheerleaders(6 girls and 4 guys) would come out and perform between events. At one point even the mascots held a mock race.




Sitting in the stands, in the shade I was perspiring and falling asleep between events. Luckily we had this really nice family from Minnesota sitting beside us, the father was on a work assignment for the past 2 1/2 years in Shanghai and the family lived in Shanghai and came up for some Olympic events.

As we left the stadium, we decided to search out some of the sponsors pavilions on to discover that the heat from the sun was so intense, we could only run from shady spot to shady spot. It was so hot that when we bought ice cream, I was not even half way through and it was melting through the packaging onto my hand and shorts.

This heat was so strong, you could fry the proverbial egg on the pavement. But the day was amazing.

With the combination of little sleep, hot hot hot sun and an hour long subway ride in rush hour Beijing being squashed into a corner, I fell asleep at 9.