TUESDAY 08/26

-Woke up late, finally feeling rested. Calm soon turned into near-panic as I tried to figure out what I wanted to do for the next week between classes and the games. I felt the clock ticking and pressure to make the most of my time. After re-reading my ACC literature, I realized I didn’t really have time to travel anywhere and that helped limit my options.

-Called Alan, who agreed to help me find Capital University of Business and Economics (where ACC is located) and my dormitory within the University compound. We met at the Dawang Lu subway stop. The subway was intolerably hot and crowded, and I began to rethink my plan of using it to transport myself and my luggage from the Media Village to school.

-Alan showed me to the school, straight up to the ACC building, and gave me an introduction to the neighborhood as we walked. I wasn’t ready to meet anyone from ACC yet so we stopped just shy of the office. For lunch, Alan showed me to an impossible-to-find North Korean restaurant (there’s no sign, it’s located in a decaying building in a back alley off of a non-descript road) and we enjoyed bowls of the best Bibim-bap I’ve ever had in my life.

-Previously we were thinking of going to the Beijing Zoo, but Alan was meeting a friend for dinner and we were out of time. I followed him back to the newly-renovated Qianmen district where his hostel was. In the hostel, we had our hides tanned by a pair of Finnish guys in doubles game of pool, which wasn’t really that fun. I left Alan there and walked back through Tiananmen Square to the Line 1 subway. It was a miserably long, crowded ride home and by the time I got out of the subway at the Media Village it was dark and rainy. I met Brian again outside of the logistics office, but he was on his way to an office dinner.

-With nobody else around and nothing left to do, I went back to my room, packed, ate instant noodles for dinner, did laundry and watched “Mr. Right” on HBO. I also switched my cell phone into Chinese—the first step in my planned Total Immersion Regimen.

-That night we had crazy lightning and thunder unlike any I’ve ever heard before—abrupt, shredding groans instead of the low rumpling I’m accustomed to.

MONDAY 08/25

-Went into the IBC one last time. I hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye to Maria the night before. The whole research room was completely packed up into boxes—they really waste no time ‘striking the set,’ as it were.

-Ate breakfast and teared up watching the ‘closing credits’ on the commissary TV set (the Closing Ceremony had just finished airing in the States). Someone did a really good job putting those credits together—spectacularly beautiful scenery from around China and a lot of very moving moments from the Games. It was also cool to recognize so many of the names popping up along the side of the screen.

-Met up with Victor and former Changchun co-worker Alan, along with several of Victor’s friends, in Wangfujing for an astoundingly good hotpot meal. Alan was on his way to Sichuan but had a few days to stop over in Beijing.

-After lunch, Victor, Alan and I walked slowly through central Beijing to Jingshan park. Jingshan park is a small park directly to the north of the forbidden city. Most of the park is taken up by a mountain which was created with the dirt dug up while constructing the moat around the Forbidden city. From the top of this mountain you can get an astounding 360° vista of the city. We hung out on this mountaintop for a while, enjoying the perfect weather and the golden sunlight.

-Leaving Jingshan park, we caught a bus to a certain hutong a few minutes away. Victor, I realized, had quietly planned and led the entire day so I never had to worry about what I was doing next; for that I am extremely thankful to him.

-The hutong was an experience. I still don’t know quite what to think of it. It was an old, traditional Beijing hutong on the surface, but behind the doors and storefronts were campy boutiques, trendy art and clothing shops and coffee shops which somehow reminded me of the Beat Generation. We met up with Matt, one of the people with whom we’d had lunch (also an ACC graduate and a very accomplished Chinese speaker).

-Met up with some of the research room for dinner at Din Tai Fung, a world-famous chain of restaurants specializing in dumplings. Apparently they’re on the New York Times’ list of the world’s top ten restaurants. It was probably the nicest place I’d ever eaten in China. Victor did a great job ordering, and true to their reputation the restaurant delivered some mighty fine dumplings. I think this was also the first time I’d ever had real xiaolongbao (soup-filled dumplings).

-Bid Alan goodbye (at least until the next day) after dinner and went back to the Media Village with Victor, who had to collect his laundry. We hung out until his shuttle to the IBC arrived. Then we said our goodbyes and parted ways.

-Found Brian in the logistics office. After he got off work we spent a few hours sitting outside enjoying the weather and talking.

SUNDAY 08/24

-Last day of the O’s!

-A funny thing: one of the “pump-up” tracks played in the National Stadium was from the Ghost Recon soundtrack. I wonder if they actually acquired the license.

-Woke up early to see if I could catch indoor volleyball and handball. Ended up just having time to see handball, Russia vs. Poland. It’s a funny game. Here’s what gets me: soccer keepers have to defend a massive net from a ball that has been kicked at high velocity and potentially infinitely close range. Handball goalies have a considerably smaller net to defend, the ball is roughly the same size and goes slower, and attackers can’t get within a certain range of the net, and yet they still let in dozens more goals than their keeper counterparts. Hmm. . .

-Rushed to the bus to try to catch water polo. After a few minutes waiting for the bus in the blistering sun I decided to instead check out some of the sponsorship exhibitions. I trekked through the IBC to the side gate, only to watch them close and padlock it: Closing Ceremony access road restrictions were going into effect. Stymied, I decided I might as well just take a nap on the big leather couches in the lobby. When I arrived, the couches were already strewn with napping and resting journalists with not one seat left. Getting discouraged, I resolved to just go to the Lenovo internet café and check my email. Thankfully they had an open computer, or I might have flipped out.

-On my way out of the café I noticed one of the Olympic torches in a display case in the wall. I asked the attendant if I could take a picture of it. “Of course!” she said, then waited there expectantly while I withdrew my camera and took a few shots. Before I could even turn to leave, the attendant incredulously asked, “Well, don’t you want to hold it?!” I said, “Sure. . .” and withdrew the torch from the case. I stood there admiring it for a moment, hefting it, examining the flame-producing mechanism. The woman remained there staring expectantly. Sure enough, as I moved to put the torch back in its case, the woman interjected, “Well, don’t you want to have your picture taken with it? Out here in the hall?” That seemed like a good idea, and frankly I wasn’t about to disagree with this woman. So there I stood, feeling more than a little self conscious, holding an unlit Olympic torch aloft in a crowded internet café filled with cynical journalists.

-Funny things around the IBC: the entire cooking staff was Scottish, and they all spoke with heavy Scottish accents. And the Starbucks employees were literally the friendliest, most outgoing and happy people I have ever met in my entire life. And it wasn’t that superficial, bouncy, in-your-face kind of friendly—it was for real. Starbucks literally seemed to have combed Asia to find such uniquely friendly people, since the baristas were from such far-flung regions as Taiwan and Thailand.

-Just like with the Opening Ceremony, the task of making the Closing Ceremony scripts fell to the research runners, which of course meant that one again, I knew the whole show ahead of time. I also got the print out our very last start lists and results, which was satisfying—most of the time my shift carried me through until half or three quarters of the day’s games were over, so I had to print all day but never got the satisfaction of actually finishing. This time, it was I alone who got to scrawl the “DONE” in big, highlighter letters across our printing schedule.

-The Closing Ceremony was, in this man’s humble opinion, terrible compared to the Opening. The artistic bit was cool but obviously could never exceed the Opening and just felt like more of the same. The speeches were interminable; watching the torch die was depressing. We all had a good laugh when Boris Johnson, mayor of London, came onstage looking completely disheveled and clueless.

-After my shift and the end of the Ceremony, a number of us found our way to the café on the rooftop of the Main Press Center. I hung around for a bit but was altogether too tired to be much fun, so I took my leave.

-On my way out the door, I had the random afterthought of jumping on a computer in the internet café. Once there, I jumped on Skype, took a leap of faith that my phone could call internationally, correctly guessed which combination of numbers would get me dialed out of the country, and called home. By some chance, my whole family was home at the same time and could access Skype almost instantaneously. It was the first time I’d spoken with them since I’d left for China and it was great.

-Went home and fell asleep mid-sentence while writing this journal entry.

SATURDAY 08/23

-It was a beautiful, sunny day, which I got to experience for about 35 seconds during my walk from the air conditioned media bus into the air conditioned IBC.

-Our task for the morning was printing names onto the BOCOG-issued Certificates of Thanks for all the researchers. At first we had only an exact number of certificates so there was no room for error, and if I sound too excited about that then you’re starting to get a sense of just how adrenaline-deprived we were for the last few days.

-Saw Mary Carillo and Brian Williams, completing my NBC Talent Sightings checklist.

-My tour of the IBC with Tong got called off—apparently her employers were busy.

-The first researchers were beginning to leave, which was sad. Things were finally coming to an end.

-Went to the Water Cube after work and met Victor. We watched the last round of the men’s 10m platform diving (guys, that’s really high. Like, three stories high) and the medal ceremony. The winner was a dark horse, an Australian, and seeing how genuinely happy he was to win that medal was truly heartwarming. Really, I’ve seen less joy in a child’s eyes on Christmas morning. All the other athletes I’d watched take the podium seemed happy alright, but this Matthew Mitcham was just beaming.

FRIDAY 08/21

-Covered an earlier shift again. It works for me: I don’t mind getting up early, and having evenings free means I get to see more events.

-Games were really winding down—we were averaging 2.5 events/hour that needed printing, which made for a very slow day.

-Spent about 2 hours writing my opinions of the Opening Ceremony ‘scandals’ on my new Tumblog. I had picked up a stomach bug and was feeling a bit low.

-In the afternoon a writer came in and had me make a bajillion copies of various closing ceremony-related packets. It ended up being a backbreaking 3-hour technological nightmare, the details of which you shall be spared.

-At 7:30 I met with Tong and her friend to arrange some guest passes for her and her employer to come tour the IBC. I figured it was the least I could do after she showed me around USA house.

-Brian and I headed out to the basketball venue. We caught the tail end of the Spain-Lithuania semifinal. The place was packed, and we squeezed onto the stairs to watch the US-Argentina semifinal.

I don’t really follow basketball, but it was still cool to see all these big names in basketball—Bryant, James, Wade—playing together. The entire time I wanted to yell “Kobe!” after Kobe made a basket, but his shooting game was way off and I never got the chance.

-At one point a guy from the commentator booths came out and tried clearing away the forty or so people sitting on the steps. At first I tried ignoring him, but for some reason he singled me out to pick on. He claimed that commentators were complaining that we were blocking their view. I’m certainly not one to stop people from doing their jobs, but there was no way I was blocking anyone’s view—I was on the lowest step, behind a wall, whereas most of the people were sitting above me. I calmly and firmly argued my cause—I’m not blocking anyone’s view, so I’m not moving. The guy kept at it for a while but he realized he wasn’t getting anywhere and he didn’t really have a leg to stand on. He eventually backed down, but not before shooting me an oh-so-hateful stare. I was nervous for about five minutes after that, worried he was coming back with help, but I soon relaxed. The reason I even mention this incident: I haven’t been bullied since middle school, and it’s nice to know that I can still stick up for myself.

-It was a rough game with lots of penalties (though whether that’s typical for a basketball game, I don’t know). Somehow the Redeem Team’s fans were vastly outnumbered by fans of Argentina; I had heard that many Chinese were huge fans of American basketball, but if that’s true it certainly didn’t show. The Argentina fans were being obnoxious, too, loudly booing the US during free throws and cheering at American penalties and gaffs. Between the poor sportsmanship and the discomfort of sitting on concrete stairs, Brian and I decided to peace halfway through the game. The US eventually won.

THURSDAY 08/21

-Slow day. I came in early to cover for a runner who was working off-site at BMX, but it got rained out. The rain was so heavy that my shoes got drenched on the way in, and I spent most of the day padding around the research room in my socks.

-Watched Modern Pentathlon with mild amusement. For the show jumping part of the event, horses are assigned by random lottery, and a few of the horses were extremely naughty and either refused to jump or threw their riders.

-Met Brian for dinner in the commissary and decided to go watch the women’s soccer gold medal match, USA vs. Brazil. The game was awesome. It was nil-nil the entire way through, and it seemed impossible that Brazil didn’t manage to score—their ball-handling made the US team look like they were in middle school, and the US spent most of the game desperately playing defense. In the first overtime, the US took one lucky shot that went in, then fended off the vicious Brazilian counter-attacks for the remaining 25 minutes. Some amazing saves by Hope Solo. Stuck around for the medal ceremony and heard the US national anthem for the first time in person.

WEDNESDAY 08/20

-Dick Ebersol came around in the morning handing out NBC pins.

-Funny things from around the IBC: sign over a bucket reading, “Please drop dead, batteries here.”

-Set up a Tumblog (a few of the RSS feeds I now read have opened my eyes to Web 2.0). Unfortunately I can’t access it from the restricted internet in my dorm.

-After work, I went by the set of the Today Show and watched for a bit.

-Then went to the Bird’s Nest and met up with Janique and Stacey to watch Usain Bolt win the Men’s 200m.

-After the race, Janique and I headed over to the Heineken House, a club that had been set up in the Beijing Agricultural Exhibition Center. It was actually more of a concert experience than a club, and hundreds of orange-clad Dutch thronged a floor beneath the stage where a band was playing. After a few minutes of that, we went outside and hung out with some other NBC folks until the club closed at around 2.

TUESDAY 08/19

-A very good day. Received a compliment on my marathon information packets as soon as I walked in the and it was only uphill from there.

-All the sports were stacked in the afternoon, so I had a very light morning. I used it to listen to Chinese Pod, practice characters and catch up on some important emails. I was feeling the end of the Olympics draw near and I spent some time contemplating how, exactly, I wanted to use my last few days.

-After work, I got on a buss to the Argentina vs. Brazil soccer semifinal. The place was packed, and all the volunteers—usually infinitely patient and good-natured—were clearly at their wit’s end dealing with the throngs of hurried and self-important media types pouring in. I somehow managed to find my friend Janique in the stands (she texted me incredibly detailed directions). I cherry-picked the most exciting part of the game, sitting down just in time to watch Argentina score two crushing goals against Brazil.

-Unfortunatly, I only got to see a few minutes of the game, as I had planned to meet Tong outside the stadium. My disappointment was short-lived, however, as Tong brought me to the [normally off-limits] athletes section of the extravagant USA house, a posh club where US athletes and their families can go to relax. Tong was working with US Wrestling Team, who were celebrating the gold-medal victory of their 55kg contender Henry Cejudo. I met some really nice people and I got to hold and admire Mr. Cejudo’s medal—very cool. Don’t know when I’ll be that close to a gold medal again. Tong showed me her extremely impressive collection of Olympic pins and hooked me up with a dozen freebie pins from USA House so I could begin trading, too. After helping some guys find a cab, she then gave me a complete tour of USA House, from the rooftop club to the basement boutique.

-Shortly thereafter I headed home, catching busses to the IBC and then to the MV, and went to bed exhausted.

MONDAY 08/18

-Phelps was in the IBC for an interview (he had just won his eighth gold) but I didn’t get to see him. Instead, I watched his interview on the live feed. I thought he did a pretty good job and was quite articulate.

-Watched in shock and dismay as Liu Xiang DNF’d his heat for the 110m hurdles. Again, it was awesome to be watching the live, uncut feed because I could tell something was wrong long before Liu took the field. Backstage, Liu was hobbling around, halfheartedly doing stretches, then occasionally standing up and pacing in frustration and despair. The broadcasters’ banter confirmed there was something wrong. In Athens, Liu Xiang became the first Asian man to win any track & field event. He became an overnight celebrity in China and the 110m hurdles final was expected to be the most-watched television event in Chinese history. Today, he must have known that he couldn’t run, and any other athlete might just not have shown up, but he had to show that he was at least trying for all of his millions upon millions of fans. I watched as he false-started, the tore the number off his leg and hobbled off the field. I’m told the stadium went dead quiet, and within a few minutes it had become nearly empty—with no Liu Xiang, people just left. The feed I was watching followed Liu as he limped down a side hallway, collapsed against a wall, and just sat there with a blank, disbelieving expression on his face. And there he sat, waiting for the fallout and no doubt feeling the disappointment of his country, his sponsors, his hordes of adoring fans, and himself. He seems like a very sensitive person—when he couldn’t run in New York earlier this year, he’d wanted to get on the microphone and apologize to all the Chinese fans who had come to see him—so this must have been devastating. What surprised me most is how alone he was; the entire time I was watching, nobody was there to help him. No doctors, no coaches, nobody to assist him or comfort him. I wondered what China’s reaction would be—anger? disappointment? encouragement?

-After a frenzied morning, things began to settle down in the afternoon. Week two had begun, and with it came a lot of the more off-beat or untraditional sports like synchronized swimming and BMX, hammer throw and modern pentathlon, water polo and show jumping.

SUNDAY 08/17

-As planned, I woke up at 7 with the intention of being on the subway at 8. Succeeded all too well and was at our planned meeting spot at 北土城, leaving me with forty-five minutes to kill.

-To pass the time I first went to find the media entrance to the subway, since it had moved since I was last there and I didn’t want to be late for work. Who should I run into but Ted, an old acquaintance from the days when I went to the youth group at my church. I knew he was in Beijing working for CCTV and we had been in touch on Facebook, but it didn’t make it any less surprising to run into him. He was on his way to see a handball match, so I let him go.

-Having found the media entrance, I went to explore places where Libbie and I could hang out. Directly across the street was a long park with a stream running through the middle. It had started to drizzle when I came upon an old, traditional-style house that I presumed was part of the park. I asked an attendant if I could go in and look around. He consented. Slowly, I walked around an old, moss-covered courtyard, admiring the ornate woodwork, the detailed painting, the tranquility of the rain falling on the stone. I sat down beneath an overhang and smiled at the beauty of it all. “How picturesque and Chinese!” I thought. “This will make the perfect place for Libbie and I to sit and catch up. And look, more quaint still, here comes the attendant with a caged bird!” The attendant took the birdcage and hung it on a hook behind me. Not five seconds later, the tranquility of the courtyard was obliterated by the loudest, sharpest and most shearing sound I have ever had the misfortune of hearing. I practically leapt out of my skin twisting around to see where the noise had come from, to quickly realize that it was the bird. It squawked again. The noise was intolerable. Another thirty seconds of trying to endure the noise and I was on my way out.

-Libbie and I finally did meet, after a miscommunication about which subway exit we were meeting at, exacerbated by the fact that all the nearby roads were closed for the women’s marathon. We walked back and forth through the park and talked.

-At 10:30 I headed back to the IBC for work at 11. Libbie really wanted to see where I worked. Much to my surprise we were able to hustle her through the media entrance without any sort of identification by pretending she was my cousin. We tried the same trick again at the IBC with less success. I was cutting it close with work, so we parted ways and Libbie went to explore the Green a bit before going home.

-Today was our medal-heaviest day: 35 gold medals were being awarded. I saw, for the first of what would be many times, Bela Karolyi, hanging out with one of our gymnastics researchers.

-After work I bolted to the Water Cube to see rounds 3.5 through 5 women’s 3m springboard diving. This time I put my camera away and enjoyed it as a sporting event.

Again, Guo Jingjing won. Supposedly we were witness to her career final dive—she announced plans to retire after this Olympics—but we’ll see if they let her quit. Both she and Wu Minxia take respectful bows to the spectators after each dive. I stuck around to watch my first medal ceremony. China took gold and bronze, Russia took silver.