Posted by Peter Wayne on August 14, 2008 at 7:00pm
Incredibly, there are 30 different venues to house all the Olympic venues. Each is tailored to its' specific sport be it fencing, softball, basketball, etc. Contrary to popular belief, they are not all in the Olympic Village. The venues are scattered mostly in the northern outskirts of the city. It can be quite a challenge getting there, as not even the taxi drivers know exactly where they all are. Fortunately, I was able to snag a special Olympic map at the airport that lays out all the locations. By pointing on the map to the taxi drivers, we get there. However, the areas around the venues are large and no vehicles are allowed within 1 KM. In fact, unless you have a ticket, there is no way you can just stroll around a stadium. I've met a number of American volunteers for the games. They are either ushers at the events or are manning the many information booths throughout the city. Most are students with an Asian background who speak Chinese as their second language. These unpaid volunteers apply about a year before the start date and are selected from a pool of thousands. Today I happened to meet one from my old home state of New Jersey, of all places. Another at a basketball venue was from Baltimore. These English speaking volunteers have been great to unravel some of the confusion on how to get to the venues (ie take subway line X to Y, etc.) Despite the difficulty in navigating, these venues are impressive. Seat position, lighting, venue layout has been well thought out. Getting crowds in and out is very smooth. There are very few 'bad' seats. Finally, I've decided that there is some sort of borderline insanity to all these Olympics. A country spends 4 or 5 years and billions of dollars building stadiums and infrastructure all for just 17 days of intense and tightly scheduled games. It will be interesting to see what Beijing will do with all these venues once the Olympics are done. More Olympic PhotosRead more…
Naturally, since I am a photographer, I will be taking pictures. I’ll be loading select photos onto MyTown. The album is located at: 2008 Olympic Photos I've uploaded a few shots from my visit to the Olympic Training Center. Watch for some of these athetes in Beijing! I’m hoping that the Daily Camera site is not blocked by the Chinese internet. My backup plan is to e-mail them to my contact at the Camera or use the photo site Flickr.Tickets. Many people have asked me how I’m going to get tickets to the events. I am counting on getting tickets once we are in Beijing. If this is like other Olympics, there should be some available on the street. It is illegal to sell tickets for more than face value. However, just in case, I did scan some eBay auctions and found a pair of basketball and athetics tickets for the ‘reasonable’ price of $35.00 each. They were delivered on time using second day air shipping. Finally, there are at least two events that are free, as they go through the streets of Beijing, cycling and the triathelon.My complements to Duzer (see his blog on this site) who flew from Sweden to Denver, stayed one night in Boulder, then up early to catch his flight to Beijing. He has definitely earned his wings!
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Whenever I travel internationally, I always like to have most of my logistics figured out before arrival. This leaves for more time touring and exploring. Frequently, I visit Europe that has become very easy for international travelers. China, on the other hand, is going to be a bit more challenging. Here is what I’m going to prepare.MoneyEven the latest guidebooks on Beijing say western credit cards are generally not accepted at local merchants and ATM’s. Starting off with some Chinese Yuan seems like a good idea. Luckily, here in Boulder, the Pearl Street branch of Wells Fargo has an international desk. I called ahead to be sure they had Yuan on hand. Turns out the teller has anticipated Boulderites needing Chinese currency, and is keeping it on hand. Since my wife has an account, I saved the reasonable five dollar exchange fee and got a good rate at .157 Yuan to the dollar.I’ve gone further to check out the ATM situation. My ATM card is on the CIRRUS network. CIRRUS is part of VISA, who is a sponsor of the Olympics. They conveniently have a link on their web site to locate ATM machines in Beijing.http://visa.via.infonow.net/usa_atm/InstitutionCandidatesPagingAction.do?startIndex=0Apparently, all 441 branches of the Bank of China have ATM’s that will work with CIRRUS. Well, after I run out of my initial 1900 Yuan, I will give it a try.Cell PhoneThere are other Americans that I will need to contact while in Beijing and I will also need to stay in touch at with folks at home. Beijing requires 900 GSM service, commonly found on quad band cell phones sold in the US. I have a phone, but my service provider, T-Mobile, charges $2.99 a minute! A Search on the internet lists a Chinese cell phone service that has an office in the US. PandaPhone.com will mail me a SIM card for $10. This will give me a local number in China and charge me only .40 a minute for calls back to the US. After getting my cell phone unlocked, I’ll be able to put in the Chinese SIM card upon arrival in Beijing and will be active on their network.HealthA good start for health advisory is the Center for Disease Control (CDC) web site. The CDC has created a special page just for travelers to the Olympics. (http://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel/contentOlympicsArticle.aspx)After reading this information, I decided to see one of Boulder local doctors that specialize in infectious disease and traveler’s health maintenance. I will consult with Dr. Brandt at the Boulder Medical Center next week. I need to check on my hepatitis A and tetanus immunizations. Also, I am always concerned about getting sick from food or water. Perhaps Dr. Brandt can recommend a prescription or over the counter medications to bring in case of Montezuma’s revenge!NavigationI’ve printed off the Chinese version of my hotel’s web page to show my taxi driver. I’m not going to expect him to speak English. I also obtained an ENGLISH map of Beijing from Boulder’s Map Gallery.CommunicationFinally, I got a basic learn Mandarin CD and book that I can study on the 12 hour flight from San Francisco to Beijing. Hopefully, I will at least be able to say hello, good-bye, thank you and “Do you speak English?”
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