Greetings from Ping Pong!

On August 16th JAK's roomie CH and I went to see Ping Pong! er...Table Tennis! (doesn't sound quite as fun) It was the women's qualifying semi-final (or something like that) - basically the two teams that won then went on to compete for the bronze.

When you go through security they make you take a picture (ironic considering that usually you don't really want people seeing what your security set up is like) I tried to take a picture of the workers but all I got was a bunch of white gloves over their faces so unsuspecting CH became my photo victim :)

In the foreground is US (red) on the left and Korea (black) on the right, then behind is Japan on the left (pink) and Hong Kong/China on the right (blue-ish)

Korea beat the US 3-0 and Japan finally eeked it out over Hong Kong/China (who had the support of most of the crowd) 3-2

Each individual plays a match (best of 5 games gets the point) and then they play doubles. This is Japan v. Hong Kong. If you need to play more, the individuals play again...best of 5 matches wins so in the case of US v. Korea, there were no more games after the doubles because it was 3-0.

Korea went on to beat Japan for the bronze medal.

This large wipe-off board explained the schedule for the day and how the brackets worked...to be honest I didn't really get what is all meant until I saw the bronze match between Korea and Japan on tv the next day. :)

CH with the pictogram outside the venue (you can see the reflections of everyone leaving).

more pictogram action outside the venue. After Salt Lake 2002 I have really enjoyed seeing what different cities do with their pictograms. According to JAK, the Beijing pictograms are based on ancient Chinese symbols/characters.

The venue - known also as the Peking University Gymnasium

The greatest part about going and watching the games live is the crowd (ha! and you thought I was going to say the mascot intermission song and video...which ps sounds like a backstreet boys song with no words) No matter what country someone yells out, the crowd responds with Jiayou! [Ji-yo!]...so even at our match when someone yelled "USA!" you get good response of "Jiayou!" - of course, for the Chinese teams (and for Hong Kong, and other special districts) everyone really gets into it.

Zhong Guo! Jiayou!

I of course shout "Jiayou!!" every time, regardless :)

Greetings from Beijing!

If you can read this, I can successfully post from China! woo hoo!

I am here during the Olympics but also to visit my friend JAK who so kindly is putting me up (and putting up with me). Her apartment is really big, much bigger than I would have thought actually.

walking in the front door (she's on the 9th floor)

Her kitchen is its own room (more than I can say about many apartments in NYC)

fridge and sink

stove burners

the washer is about 1/2 the size of a standard one in the US (everything hangs to dry)

Living Room

Hallway to the two bedrooms and bathroom (guest room on left, master bedroom straight ahead, bathroom to right)

I have heard a lot about 'squatty pottys' but have yet to have to use one; and let me tell you, the water pressure here is phenomenal!

The View from the living room:

looking down to the courtyard. We're in a building just like these other three.

The main intersection near the apartment complex. To the left is one of the university areas. All the larger boulevard streets (these included) have a sidewalk, flanked with plants (which are new for the Games), then bike lanes, then usually a strip of a bit more green, then the main roadways. So even on pretty busy streets you feel removed from the traffic. The streets themselves are very wide, and the blocks are huge.

having the factories off for a few weeks and half the cars driving (odd/even days) has really paid off - notice the mountains! The weather has been beautiful!