Olympic Fever

Just thought I'd do a quick post before Nikki arrives tomorrow.

I've been saving most of the big sights until Nikki got here, but visited a few parks. Jinshang park is a large hill behind the Forbidden city that was made from the material dug out to make the Forbidden City's moat. From the top you get great views of the city and there's a giant Buddha (although you aren't allowed photos). In the hunt for beach volleyball tickets I went out to Chaoyang park, but was too late, so had a wander round the park. It's pretty immense and has lots of areas, right in the middle was a tacky amusement park. On my way out I was invited into the Haier House of tomorrow. Haier sponsor the games and make household appliances. Their house of tomorrow involves putting internet and TV into anything and everything, including bathrooms, air conditioning units and picture frames.

Whilst waiting for the volleyball final I went for a wander round Beijing Zoo, after being promised a dolphin show I rushed round to see it and it turned out it was actually a sea lion! The zoo is ok, some of the cages look quite small, and it smells a bit funny.

Since the baseball i've also been to see quarter-finals of the water polo, had a full day in the Bird's nest where i saw womens and mens 4x100m finals, 4x400 womens qualifying, women's long jump final, second half of the decathlon, 5000m womens final, 50k walk and a few others, saw the Brazil vs. USA womens volleyball final and the women's 10k swim. Its been a really enjoyable experience slightly tainted by the touts ridiculously overcharging and the Chinese government being a bit overzealous on the security. I tried to go watch the closing ceremonies with someone from the hostel as we were told it would be shown on the big screen just outside the stadium, but when we got there the closest you were allowed without a ticket was about 1.5 miles away where you could only just make out the stadium.

Beijing is a great city and the scale of it is unbelievable, although it doesn't bring to mind what i thought a chinese city would be like, it seems more like a cross between a Chinese, american and spanish city!

I'm here!

Well its been an eventful first couple of days in Beijing! After a fairly uneventful flight i got to the airport and sent the 'I'm here and well' texts while waiting at the baggage carousel, after a while I noticed the people round were thinning considerably, until i was one of only two people left and there was no more bags to come. I realised the praise I had bestowed upon terminal 5 earlier that day was a little too forthcoming. My bag had been sent to Vienna! They gave me a phone number and told me it should arrive tomorrow (Monday) meanwhile i headed on a confused journey via 2 taxis to my hostel, quite a nice place just a short walk from the forbidden city. After sorting myself out with a shower i headed down to tian' anmen square for a leisurely stroll. I seemed to be attracting a bit of attention and ended up with an uninvited companion for the afternoon (Leah?) who wanted to practice her English. I also felt a little like a celebrity when people were asking if they could take a picture with me. Leah explained that my brown hair and blue eyes accompanied by my height made me somewhat of a novelty. I tried to stay up as late as i could to avoid jetlag, but only managed about 10ish (i had been awake for 36 hours at this point!).

I woke up quite early and decided to explore the Olympic village, i tackled the subways and was soon at the birds nest being swarmed by tickets touts, despite the many signs warning of the punishment. As the tickets had increased 10 fold on the face value (around £150-200 for athletics) i bought some for the Netherlands vs. Cuba baseball match. I had wanted to see a match in New York but it was too expensive there.

Again i was accosted by people wanting photos, and a couple of children asked for my autograph. I was also interviewed by a Chinese TV station! I headed back to the hostel and by bag arrived shortly after, so i grabbed a shower and a change of clothes and headed to the baseball stadium. I found out that its quite boring although the crowd atmosphere was good. Cuba won 12-3, i grabbed something to eat, and that was the end of day 2.

One gone one to go...

It's Saturday 16th August and Mark is currently on his way to Heathrow airport to catch his 4 o'clock flight to Beijing. He'll arrive in Beijing about 3am Sunday morning which will be about 9/10am Beijing time! Here comes the jetlag...

I'm (Nikki) back on the Isle of Man and busy gathering all the last minute 'essentials' like wet wipes and a pen knife that seem to have been missed off the miles of list we've made (and remade) over the past few months. I'm also contemplating if I'm actually going to be able to lug these huge mounds of stuff surrounding me on my back for a whole year and why, oh why, did i not go for a backpack with wheels?! (for the sissy backpacker BUT I AM a sissy and there's little to no upper body strength in these arms!..)

Anyway that's just a little update after months of nothing - we're pretty much prepared (we think). If we've forgotten anything Mark's going to give me a ring (skype) and let me know all the things I should grab last minute and all the "essential" items we've forked a fortune out for that we should just leave behind to gather dust!

The weather in Beijing at the moment sounds a little erratic - Olympic rowing being cancelled due to huge electrical storms while the sailing has to be delayed because there's no wind! Mark's off to watch some of the athletics happening this week and will hopefully be able to get a few extra tickets for other events when he gets there.

the initial plan when I arrive (26th August) is to spend a few days in Beijing (acclimatising, sleeps erratically and sweating lots) then we're off to S/Korea by boat then another boat to Japan where we'll hopefully arrive by my birthday (Sept 8th - all donations welcome :P ) for a weird Japanese styled celebration (?!) A couple of weeks spent drifting around Japan trying all that we fancy and daring each other to eat the most disgusting foods. Boat journey (48 hours long!) back to China but into Shanghai this time from where we'll then head west and hopefully make it into Tibet (via the highest railway in the world with pressurised cabins!)

I should stop writing now or I'll go on for ever. We'll hopefully be updating this more often from now on and using it as our main travel blog so you can keep up to date about where we are and what we've been up to.

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See you all in a year!

N&M