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Beijing 2008 - Reflection on my first few days here at the Summer Games

by Robert Scales | August 13, 2008 at 09:45 am

244 views | 4 Recommendations | 3 comments

The 29th Summer Games have been underway for a few days now, and so much has happened.

I am excited to be here in China. Beijing is a great host city; people are going out of their way to make us feel welcome and ready to assist fans from around the world.

On Friday August 8th, or 080808 as it will now be recorded in history, China inspired the world with an incredible display of artistic choreography, traditional culture and brilliant pyrotechnic displays.

China blew our minds with this human powered show, an event that will be forever archived as one of the best Olympic opening shows!

After spending a brilliant night making friends with fans from around the world, we went exploring various venues. On our list of locations to scoot, we ventured to the 'Birds Nest' national stadium, the 'Water Cube' aquatic centre, the fencing hall and the Yukeson basketball stadium.

Day one here took a sad turn when we heard about the deadly stabbing of an American relative of a USA volleyball team coach, an event that has raised issues about some of the security measures at non-Olympic venues.

We also ran into the Chinese women's fencing team and their coach. Since I'm such a fencing fan, this was the highlight of my day.

That night we went to Beijing's one and only Drive-In-Theatre where an all night concert was hosted.

On our second day here, we attended the rowing qualification and cheered for Canada, China and other countries. Sadly a thunderstorm forced us to return to the comfort of our apartment in Fulicheng, a district south-east of Beijing. This allowed us to regroup before watching the USA-China basketball game.

Today we will be going to see our peers at the British Colombia Canada pavilion where they will showcase the upcoming 2010 winter Olympics in Vancouver.

We also plan to go eat street food: snake, scorpion and various other bugs. Tasty treats!

Check out my You Tube Channel for all sorts of videos from Beijing

If you have a moment, check out some of the amazing pictures my friend Kris Krug has been taking at www.flickr.com/photos/kk

This article was cross posted on BBC's My Game: Beijing Diary

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Vinny

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 09:52 on August 13th, 2008

Robert Scales, I like this story. It's good stuff.

sammy-brown (not verified)

at 09:55 on August 13th, 2008

a good first hand report, have you seen anything of protesters which happened today

René

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 10:00 on August 13th, 2008

Robert Scales, I like this story. It's good stuff. How was the fireworks? There seems to be some controversy over them.

Robert Scales

at 13:27 on August 13th, 2008

Sammy - I don't cover protesters.. I opted to keep away from these due to personal and corporate obligations. (I run a company which has an office in China and this could potentially affect our operations.)

I cover culture, fans and the spirit of the Olympic around the games, as I did in Torino, Italy. I write non political articles base on my experience in China and at the games since I have been living/working in China for over a year.

Rene - I have not heard of any controversy over the fireworks, please feel free to provide more information and I will gladly look into this for you.