Dispatches from Beijing: Live from the Olympics

August 11, 2008 at 12:30 PM | by pbb | 0 Comments

A friend of Jaunted is on-hand for the Olympics, and she'll be doing her best to keep us posted on what it's really like for a spectator in China. The first of her reports came through today:

I arrived in Beijing with my family early this afternoon and we went to our first event: the Women's 58 kg Class Weightlifting. It was amazing to see these women lift up to two-and-a-half times their weight. China's Yanqing Chen won the gold.

But that wasn't the first Olympic event we attended, as we were lucky enough to get tickets to the Men's Preliminary Football event on August 7 in Shanghai Stadium, where some of the soccer matches are being played. We saw an exciting game, sitting next to 50,000 other fans: The sold-out match between Argentina and Ivory Coast.

The energy at the Olympics is wonderful with the audiences cheering for all the athletes. Getting to the venues has been relatively painless, but the security is very tight. Once you're in, though, there are lots of friendly volunteers to get you to your seats!
Interestingly enough, we've had a great Olympics experience before we even started our vacation in China. We flew out of San Francisco on July 25 and had the good fortune to have the US soccer and swim teams on our flight to Hong Kong.
I was reading the Time magazine issue covering the Olympics--with Dara Torres on the cover--when I realized that she was actually sitting across from me in the waiting area. I shamelessly asked for her autograph since she's a real inspiration for moms that anything is possible at any age!

Related Stories:
· 2008 Olympics Travel: Google Mapping All the Venues [Jaunted]
· 2008 Olympics coverage [Jaunted]

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