Memoirs of Beijing

I love cute, tiny, short haired dogs.  In China, you can only have small dogs as if they are bigger than the allowable dog measurement set by the government, they have the authority to keep your dog and kill it.  So.. most dogs in my neighbourhood are small.

Anyway, as a dog lover, I can’t understand how people can stand to eat dog meat.  I remember once after church, Marco and I were walking along the west gate of Chaoyang Park looking for a place to eat.  We entered a Korean restaurant and was looking at the menu.  Marco chose something based on the picture.  When I asked him if he was sure, he replied, “Why? It looks good!”  I told him, “You want to eat dog meat?”  After telling him that’s it’s dog meat, he veered away from that page and ordered other stuff.

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Sorry for the delay in updates. It’s either I’m catching up on sleep or I’m stuck at the Nest with no access. You might wonder how come my update is for day 8-10 right? Well.. Team Philippines is taking a rest in Day 9 & 10 so I just bundle it up into one.

Day 8 in Beijing saw the 2nd blue sky day. I had to come in early as I will watch the boxing matches in the evening. I’m a bit sad to have missed Henry Dagmil’s long jump preliminaries last night.

Henry Dagmil’s entry to long jump was not by qualifying any of the matches but as a requirement made by the IAAF. They required us to send two athletes which we did and both for long jump. Henry entered the event with a personal best of 7.99m. He placed 34th in a field of 38 and missed his best by 0.41m.  He achieved 7.58m in his first jump and fouled the next two jumps.

Team Philippines will be back on Tuesday with long jumper Marestella Torres jumping into action at 9:40am. I’ll take my morning break in time to see her jump and hopefully can get some good shots to post here.

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Day 7 in Beijing. The sun is out and the weather is perfect! Today’s the start of the athletic events and the Olympic park is teeming with people. They even had to control the crowd going in the McDonalds shop after the games.

At 11:15am, I got the chance to watch my first Olympic match, the Women’s Artistic Gymnastics Individual All-Around Final. I’ve been a fan of gymnastics since I was young watching Nadia Comaneci putting perfect 10 performances in almost all the events. Today, I watched two US athletes take the gold and silver medal from the Chinese who has been dominating in this sport for the past few days. Nastia Liukin got the gold after performing very well in the beam and uneven bars. Shawn Johnson sneaked in to second with a difficult move in Vault and a flawless performance in Floor Exercise. Yang Yilin placed third after a dismal performance in the Floor Exercise and Vault. It was quite an experience as it’s too difficult to track the athletes as all four apparatus are used one after the other. However, I’m just too happy to be able to see it live and US win.

As for Team Philippines, diver Shiela Mae Perez placed 23 out of a field of 30 and scored 251.15 in the preliminaries. She’s 122.75 points behind Chinese diving princess Guo Jing Jing. In Swimming, Christel Simms was seen in action in Heat #6 of the 50m freestyle. She placed 4th in her heat clocking in at 26.64 seconds. This is slower than her qualifying time of 26.31 seconds. Another swimmer Ryan Arabejo, swam his best and placed third in his heats in the 1500m freestyle clocking in at 15:42.27, slower than his qualifying time of 15:39.86.

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I met Harry for the first time during the luncheon meeting hosted by Pres. Arroyo at the Asia Hotel in Beijing. My first impression of him was he’s a simple, humble man who doesn’t like attention and respects people. He has muscles which any man could envy but he looks so slim that a wind might blow him away. Well, what do you expect from someone competing in light flyweight division. They all can’t be more than 48 kg.

As for their group, there are 29 boxers and preliminaries will start on the 13th of August. 3 boxers drew bye and won’t see action till the 16th. For Harry, should he win all his matches, his schedule will be like this:

13 August 19:00 to 22:30 - We will see Harry in action against Manyo Plange of Ghana at 815pm (moved from 845pm).  Outcome.. Harry lost 3 to 6 against Ghana.. Read the rest of this entry »

They held another dress rehearsal last Saturday for the opening ceremonies and this one was much better than Wednesday.  There were fireworks which made me giddy like a kid and the opening act was “WOW”.  I missed the opening act last Wednesday so I made it a point to really watch it that night.  I wasn’t disappointed, I will add that act as one of my favorites!  The broadcast show on the TV inside was much better this time but it’s so irritating to see “Not for Broadcast” on the middle of the screen.  I guess they’re paranoid because of Korea’s SBS TV Network’s coverage.

The show started at 8:08 pm.. and there was even a countdown with matching fireworks when the clock stroke 8:08.  No downpours marred the dress rehearsal so all acts were completed.  4 batches of fireworks were lit and the last one was at 10:02 pm.  According to the news, the fireworks they lit last Saturday was just a third of the fireworks display which we will see during the opening ceremonies.  I can’t wait to see the full display!  I heard they will form letters in the air just like in Sydney.

Earlier that evening around 6pm, the different provinces of China performed acts which represent their provinces.  It lasted for an hour and my friend was impressed with the Hong Kong dancers.

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Last July 29, the National Stadium hosted the second dress rehearsal for the Opening Ceremonies. It was gloomy, windy and smelled like it’s gonna rain. I took the subway from my office to the Bird’s Nest via line 10. As it was my first time to ride this line to the Bird’s Nest, I wasn’t as confident as usual. The hallway which connects line 10 to line 8 was barricaded and questions to volunteers lead me to a path outside. Once I exited C1, I was out on the road with no signs whatsoever which had me confused. Line 8 at present is only used by staff and volunteers connected to the Olympics. I had to go through security as if I was in the airport. Once that was completed, I had to go back down to the station again and ride line 8.

Anyway, the stop I was supposed to get off to was close so I had to get off the next stop. When I got off, I was amazed by my surroundings. It was totally different and beautiful. The serenity and the quaintness of my surroundings was worth the long walk back to the Bird’s Nest.

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The Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee recently posted on their website the house rules for spectators when watching Olympic matches.   I suggest you print it out as sometimes they might have their own rules which are unreasonable and you have something to disprove them.

I remember attending one of the Good Luck Beijing games and I had some paracetamol with me.  They informed me that I can’t bring it in.   As I was in a hurry, I just let it be.   This time, I’ll come prepared and print myself a copy of the house rules.

The House Rules are as follow:

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The Phase 4 of the Beijing Olympic ticket general public sales will start tomorrow, July 25. A total of 820,000 tickets will be sold to the public of which 250,000 are for sports events to be held in Beijing.

Ticket sales will start from July 25, 9am to 6pm until the tickets are sold out. Each person can only purchase a maximum of 2 tickets for one event. They also put a cap on how many tickets will be sold daily and for which events. No English list yet out there.

Ticket buyers can proceed to the respective venues ticket office except for the events in the Bird’s Nest, Water Cube, National Indoor Stadium, Fencing Hall and Wukesong Baseball Field. These tickets will be sold at the main box office in Beitucheng Road. Payment method is either cash or VISA credit card. Invoices can also be issued, if needed. For more information, visit the ticketing website at http://www.tickets.beijing2008.cn/?lang=en-cn

So.. what are you waiting for? You sure won’t see me there! Hehehe.. I already have a bunch of tickets which I won from Phase 1 to 3. See you at the Games!

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Three new Beijing subway lines are set to open this weekend in time for the Olympics. These lines have long been awaited by the public as they were supposed to open last month.

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