(Please excuse the formatting of this post, the Preview looked much different. Its about 2:45 AM in Beijing right now, and I really should get some sleep. I will fight with it tomorrow.)
One of the main reasons for the trip to China was to see the Olympics. I realized that although I have been putting up photos and talking about the trip, I really haven't said much about the main event. If I had to sum up the Olympics in one word, I would say that it was spectacular! When Toronto originally lost the bid to Beijing, I was disappointed, but I must say that Beijing absolutely outdid itself, and I honestly do not believe that Toronto could have done anywhere close to as good a job as Beijing did.
The Olympic Green was not accessible to the general public; we could only go to it on the days when we had tickets for an event. The first day we spent at Olympic Green was August 19 for the 3m Diving Finals. Arriving at the park for the first time was overwhelming, here are a few pics around the area.
The first photo was taken from the north end of the park looking south. To give you an idea of how large the park is, it takes approximately 25 minutes to walk from where the first photo was taken all the way to the Bird's Nest and Watercube.
On its own, the first event was exciting enough, since I had never seen live Olymic event before, but it was made even sweeter by Alexandre Despatie's Silver Medal finish. I took pictures of the scoreboard after each of his dives, and of the final standings at the end of each round. I won't bore you with all the photos, but will share with you the round 6 photos and a few shots of the medal presentation.
We also saw the Men's Decathalon, and the Men's 10 m Diving Semi-Final. Those were great to see as well, but there was no comparing seeing those events to seeing a Canadian athlete win a medal.
The last event we went to was the Closing Ceremonies. It was an absolute blast! Security was extremely tight, we had to show our tickets at multiple points along the way where we had not had to do so before. I did not mind, though, as the extra measures were for my protection. We stopped off at the Olympic Superstore and purchased a number of items including A Canadian Flag and a Chinese Flag. After grabbing a quick bite to eat, we decided to make our way down to the Bird's Nest to get our seats,
As we walked towards the stadium we each carried the two flags along the way. We were not prepared for what happened next. Someone stopped and asked to have her photo taken with us. After she finished, more and more people wanted to take their picture with us. Even one of the athletes from Cote d'Ivoire stopped us to have a photo taken with us! While the athlete was standing with us, more people with flags from different countries joined in the photo and I believe at one point we had 5 or 6 countries together in the same group. Unfortunately I did not get the group shot along the way. In the end, a walk that would normally take us 15 minutes wound up taking almost 2 hours because we had to stop to get our photo taken so many times. It was an amazing experience! We finally made it to our seats, and the volunteers told us we would be participating in the show by waving fans, beating some toy drums, and holding torches that lit up.
The show itself was stunning. I cannot begin to describe the raw energy that filled the stadium during the show. The colours were gorgeous, and I know I sat with a gaping mouth on more than one occasion whilst I took in the beauty of it all. I took about 150 photographs. I will not post all of them to this entry, but I will share with you some of my favourites.
The Olympic Green was not accessible to the general public; we could only go to it on the days when we had tickets for an event. The first day we spent at Olympic Green was August 19 for the 3m Diving Finals. Arriving at the park for the first time was overwhelming, here are a few pics around the area.
The first photo was taken from the north end of the park looking south. To give you an idea of how large the park is, it takes approximately 25 minutes to walk from where the first photo was taken all the way to the Bird's Nest and Watercube.
On its own, the first event was exciting enough, since I had never seen live Olymic event before, but it was made even sweeter by Alexandre Despatie's Silver Medal finish. I took pictures of the scoreboard after each of his dives, and of the final standings at the end of each round. I won't bore you with all the photos, but will share with you the round 6 photos and a few shots of the medal presentation.
We also saw the Men's Decathalon, and the Men's 10 m Diving Semi-Final. Those were great to see as well, but there was no comparing seeing those events to seeing a Canadian athlete win a medal.
The last event we went to was the Closing Ceremonies. It was an absolute blast! Security was extremely tight, we had to show our tickets at multiple points along the way where we had not had to do so before. I did not mind, though, as the extra measures were for my protection. We stopped off at the Olympic Superstore and purchased a number of items including A Canadian Flag and a Chinese Flag. After grabbing a quick bite to eat, we decided to make our way down to the Bird's Nest to get our seats,
As we walked towards the stadium we each carried the two flags along the way. We were not prepared for what happened next. Someone stopped and asked to have her photo taken with us. After she finished, more and more people wanted to take their picture with us. Even one of the athletes from Cote d'Ivoire stopped us to have a photo taken with us! While the athlete was standing with us, more people with flags from different countries joined in the photo and I believe at one point we had 5 or 6 countries together in the same group. Unfortunately I did not get the group shot along the way. In the end, a walk that would normally take us 15 minutes wound up taking almost 2 hours because we had to stop to get our photo taken so many times. It was an amazing experience! We finally made it to our seats, and the volunteers told us we would be participating in the show by waving fans, beating some toy drums, and holding torches that lit up.
The show itself was stunning. I cannot begin to describe the raw energy that filled the stadium during the show. The colours were gorgeous, and I know I sat with a gaping mouth on more than one occasion whilst I took in the beauty of it all. I took about 150 photographs. I will not post all of them to this entry, but I will share with you some of my favourites.
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