Olympics Day 1: Working the System for Rowing Tickets, Celebrating with Peking Duck

We arrived in Beijing at 7:30am and quickly made our way’s to our friend Jim’s place. He had Olympic tickets for the first heat of the rowing preliminaries later in the day. We spent the morning catching up and plotting how we might be able to get 2 people in with the 1 extra ticket he had. We eventually headed out to pick up the other co-workers from their hotel, then made the 1-hour journey to the rowing/sculling venue.

It was shocking how few cars were on the highway. Starting nearly a month ago, the government restricted traffic on Beijing’s roads. License plate numbers determine which days cars can be out, alternating between even and odd plates, though taxis can drive every day. We had allowed extra time to get to the venue, which was way outside of the city towards the Great Wall. We arrived 1.5 hours early due to the wonderfully light traffic. With the extra time, we stopped at local Chinese restaurant to watch the rerun of the opening ceremony. It was our first glimpse of the magnificent performance since the train ride didn’t have TVs.

Jim, an American w/great Chinese skills, was the constant master of working the system. He managed to get our 2 vans right up to the entrance while most people had to take a bus from the barricade a few miles away. Then he negotiated with the volunteers to get us to the front of the line due to the 3 small girls who charmed the volunteers. The parents were so worried about the girls ability to handle the extreme heat: 95F with 95% humidity. The volunteers also let the 3 small girls without tickets which left us 2 extra tickets to get in! By the end of the day, Jim had definitely wow’d us all with his chinese negotiation skills and ability to work the system.

The rowing event was quite fun. One of the US visitors is a big rowing fan, so he gave us the full download on the athletes and sporting rules. We ended up squatting in seats towards the finish line, and enjoying the beautiful pace in which the athletes rowed. (I do believe, however, Karl was charmed more by the female athletes running around warming up in their skimpy outfits.)

After the event, we made our way back to Beijing with a very enjoyable Monitor at the Kerry Center bar. Those were the best mojitos we’ve had in the country – and extremely refreshing after a very hot & humid day. It was then off for a quick refresh before Jim went to a business dinner, and we explored the city for Peking Duck. Unfortunately Jim’s recommendation (1949) was totally booked, so the driver took us to another restaurant (forgot name) where we had an awesome meal. We were exhausted from the lack of sleep on the train and the day in the sun. Nevertheless, we rallied enough to make it to the Olympic stadium. We had hoped to take night pictures of all the venues, and were very disappointed to find a massive fence all around the water cube and bird’s nest buildings. There were a lot of people out in the street, walking around and taking pictures with the fence blocking the view to the distant buildings. You needed an official ticket for an event to get into the main area. We were surprised by the lack of tailgaters, partiers, etc. in the streets. It was still full of energy and gave us an opportunity to try to understand the scalping scene. We found out it wasn’t as easy as expected. Perhaps we’ll have better luck figuring out tickets tomorrow. We have none right now…