Well after the long day on Sunday, all I wanted to do was sleep in on Monday, but of course, it was Monday, and I'm not allowed to do that! So I was up bright and early and went to breakfast as usual. One of our clients was eating by himself, so I sat with him. He said he had two tickets to field hockey that morning, and no one to go with. So of course, since we are supposed to take care of the clients first, I said I would go with him if he couldn't find anyone else! :)
I kind of wanted to go just to get out of the hotel, but come on, it was field hockey. I don't even know what field hockey is...seriously...never even heard of it! I hadn't even taken a shower or anything, still in my pajamas (shorts and a tshirt), but we were late, so I just hopped in a taxi with him and took off. About half an hour later, the taxi driver stopped at an intersection and ushered for us to get out. We had no clue where we were, but we weren’t by any stadium, that’s for sure!
He was pointing to the road blocks ahead and said, "no go" so we just got out and started walking. Doing the usual, of course, stopping every block asking someone where we are going. The Olympic tickets are big and have the Chinese and English name of the event, as well as the name of the venue, so if you have a ticket, you can usually get to where you need to go. We walked and walked and walked forever...and ended up going right by the entire Olympic Village. It was pretty cool!
All of the little apartments had flags hanging off the balconies so you could tell who (what country) was staying where. There were some people practicing fencing, some boxing, some running...people from all over the world there...it really was cool to see! But we were in a hurry to get there to the event. Our tickets were for 9am and it was almost 11 now.
We finally found the stadium and the spectator entrance, after walking a couple of miles at least. We sat down in time to see the second half of thePakistan vs Great Britain Pakistan is supposedly really good at this sport, but Great Britain
It was kind of exciting to see, but I'm confident in saying that is the first AND last field hockey match I will ever go to. :) We left the stadium and decided we would try to sneak me in at the USA House with our client. It's all about who you know over here! Turns out my boss went toStanford Business School USA
After we had lunch there with the GAP family, and listened to there stories about staying at the same hotel as theUSA
My boss and his wife were heading out to see tennis that evening, but he wanted to take his kids down the street (STRAIGHT down the street) for some ice cream first. Oh by the way, there is a COLD STONE right down the street! I was in heaven when I saw that! So anyways - he said he'd be back at 4pm to leave for tennis. Well at 4:15, he wasn't back, and had been gone over an hour with two of his three little kids. We were all getting a little worried, and then we got the phone call that he was lost. It was kind of funny at first, until we realized he was REALLY lost, and REALLY angry, and had the kids with him. So off I went, on foot, with a hand-bag, a big camera, and a back-pack on. I have no idea why I didn't just leave it all in the lobby of the hotel or something, but everyone started to freak out, so I just started running towards the ice cream place. I thought maybe when we came up from the subway he kept going straight instead of turning, so I sprinted that way...probably ran half a mile with all that crap on, sweating to death, and no sign of a tall bald headed guy. So I turned around, ran all the way back to the intersection, and ran the OTHER way. I literally thought I was going to die from running that far in the pollution and the heat, but I eventually found him, dripping wet from sweat, and dragging the tired kids. He was SO SO mad - or frustrated for getting lost. We walked back to the hotel and he calmed down, and they left for tennis. But what a crazy 20 minutes that was!
Shannon and I hung out with the kids that night. We walked them down the street a couple of blocks and through a shopping mall. I found THE COOLEST pair of multi-colored Nike shocks I've ever seen. I asked the guy if he had an 8.5 and he looked at me like I was crazy. Oh no...no big sizes. Come on! An 8.5 isn't that big is it? Well inAsia , a 7 is enormous, so no cool shoes for me. They weren't knock-offs so they were actually really expensive. We shopped for a little bit, and then took the kids out for dinner. And guess what we found!? A Sizzler in Beijing Tianjin
This morning was the last day at the hotel, and the last night with the clients. We had a little work meeting this morning around breakfast, since all of the Jayhawk staff is leaving today (except me). After breakfast, we loaded up all 8 thousand of the bags from the 50 rooms we have, and checked out. I took all of my boss' families stuff as well as mine to the apartment, which we moved in to today. I took the driver, because there was no way we could fit all that stuff in a taxi.
I'm getting to know our private driver pretty well, even though he speaks limited English. He never has the radio on, so I said, "Let’s listen to some music!" and pushed the power button. I always sit in the front seat and people always look at me weird. Most of the rich people over here who have drivers sit in the back. But not me, I want to see what's going on! So I hit scan until I found a good station, and found one that was playing Pussycat Dolls, and after that Coldplay! I was SO excited, I rolled the window down and cranked the music and started singing along. Liu (driver) thought I was crazy, but got a good laugh out of it! :)
We dropped off the bags at the apartment, which literally filled up two carts FULL, and went back to the hotel for Shannon and the kids. We were hungry so we walked next door to try and find some sort of food for all of us. There was a little store of some kind...not sure how to describe it because I can't even tell you what in the world was in there. After several minutes of walking around trying to find something edible, we picked out some sort of crackers with some lemon filling in them, some chips which turned out to be disgusting, and some juice. And that was lunch!
The older kids went to a boxing event, and Shannon and I took the youngest one (4) with us back to the apartment with the rest of our stuff. We walked across the street to theChina Word Shopping Center
I decided to do another "quick" trip to Wal-Mart with the driver to get some more things for the apartment. I tried to tell him where I wanted to go, but he didn't get it. I told him to just drive and I pointed to tell him how to get there. I'm actually pretty familiar with this area ofBeijing
When we got back and unloaded everything, Shannon and I went out to see some boxing. Neither one of us were very interested in it, but the tickets were free and we wanted to get out and do something. (I'm going to be so sad when she leaves and it's just ME!) So we hopped in a cab, showed him our ticket, and he dropped us off...with the gymnasium no where in sight. I hate it when they do that!! So we just got out and started walking...showing my ticket to people every block or so trying to figure out where to go. About 10 minutes later, we finally found the gymnasium. I don't why cab drivers do that...maybe just to Americans because they don't like us! :) Anyways - when we got in and found our seats, they were terrible...almost at the very top. That's probably why they were free! :) So we just decided to put our ticket away and walk down closer. We sat down in two empty seats, and this Chinese guy behind me tapped me on the shoulder as SOON as I sat down and just said, "NO!" and shook his finger at me. Haha! Okay okay -- we got up and found two other seats...jerk. We could at least see what was going on now!
Turns out I don't know the first thing about boxing, and neither didShannon . We couldn't even figure out how they were getting points. It was kind of exciting, but got really old really quick. We only stayed for a couple of matches, and decided to leave because we couldn't figure out if there was going to be a USA USA
So that was it, we went to bed and I just woke up a little bit ago. It is so much nicer to be here at an apartment where I can unpack and have some space. Living out of hotels was about to drive me crazy! Today we are going to a baseball game (Japan vs somebody) and then basketball tonight (Australia
I'll write more tomorrow (or tonight if I have time!) :)
-TK
I kind of wanted to go just to get out of the hotel, but come on, it was field hockey. I don't even know what field hockey is...seriously...never even heard of it! I hadn't even taken a shower or anything, still in my pajamas (shorts and a tshirt), but we were late, so I just hopped in a taxi with him and took off. About half an hour later, the taxi driver stopped at an intersection and ushered for us to get out. We had no clue where we were, but we weren’t by any stadium, that’s for sure!
He was pointing to the road blocks ahead and said, "no go" so we just got out and started walking. Doing the usual, of course, stopping every block asking someone where we are going. The Olympic tickets are big and have the Chinese and English name of the event, as well as the name of the venue, so if you have a ticket, you can usually get to where you need to go. We walked and walked and walked forever...and ended up going right by the entire Olympic Village. It was pretty cool!
All of the little apartments had flags hanging off the balconies so you could tell who (what country) was staying where. There were some people practicing fencing, some boxing, some running...people from all over the world there...it really was cool to see! But we were in a hurry to get there to the event. Our tickets were for 9am and it was almost 11 now.
We finally found the stadium and the spectator entrance, after walking a couple of miles at least. We sat down in time to see the second half of the
It was kind of exciting to see, but I'm confident in saying that is the first AND last field hockey match I will ever go to. :) We left the stadium and decided we would try to sneak me in at the USA House with our client. It's all about who you know over here! Turns out my boss went to
(The entrance - and amazing DID await!)
After we had lunch there with the GAP family, and listened to there stories about staying at the same hotel as the
My boss and his wife were heading out to see tennis that evening, but he wanted to take his kids down the street (STRAIGHT down the street) for some ice cream first. Oh by the way, there is a COLD STONE right down the street! I was in heaven when I saw that! So anyways - he said he'd be back at 4pm to leave for tennis. Well at 4:15, he wasn't back, and had been gone over an hour with two of his three little kids. We were all getting a little worried, and then we got the phone call that he was lost. It was kind of funny at first, until we realized he was REALLY lost, and REALLY angry, and had the kids with him. So off I went, on foot, with a hand-bag, a big camera, and a back-pack on. I have no idea why I didn't just leave it all in the lobby of the hotel or something, but everyone started to freak out, so I just started running towards the ice cream place. I thought maybe when we came up from the subway he kept going straight instead of turning, so I sprinted that way...probably ran half a mile with all that crap on, sweating to death, and no sign of a tall bald headed guy. So I turned around, ran all the way back to the intersection, and ran the OTHER way. I literally thought I was going to die from running that far in the pollution and the heat, but I eventually found him, dripping wet from sweat, and dragging the tired kids. He was SO SO mad - or frustrated for getting lost. We walked back to the hotel and he calmed down, and they left for tennis. But what a crazy 20 minutes that was!
Shannon and I hung out with the kids that night. We walked them down the street a couple of blocks and through a shopping mall. I found THE COOLEST pair of multi-colored Nike shocks I've ever seen. I asked the guy if he had an 8.5 and he looked at me like I was crazy. Oh no...no big sizes. Come on! An 8.5 isn't that big is it? Well in
This morning was the last day at the hotel, and the last night with the clients. We had a little work meeting this morning around breakfast, since all of the Jayhawk staff is leaving today (except me). After breakfast, we loaded up all 8 thousand of the bags from the 50 rooms we have, and checked out. I took all of my boss' families stuff as well as mine to the apartment, which we moved in to today. I took the driver, because there was no way we could fit all that stuff in a taxi.
I'm getting to know our private driver pretty well, even though he speaks limited English. He never has the radio on, so I said, "Let’s listen to some music!" and pushed the power button. I always sit in the front seat and people always look at me weird. Most of the rich people over here who have drivers sit in the back. But not me, I want to see what's going on! So I hit scan until I found a good station, and found one that was playing Pussycat Dolls, and after that Coldplay! I was SO excited, I rolled the window down and cranked the music and started singing along. Liu (driver) thought I was crazy, but got a good laugh out of it! :)
We dropped off the bags at the apartment, which literally filled up two carts FULL, and went back to the hotel for Shannon and
The older kids went to a boxing event, and Shannon and I took the youngest one (4) with us back to the apartment with the rest of our stuff. We walked across the street to the
I decided to do another "quick" trip to Wal-Mart with the driver to get some more things for the apartment. I tried to tell him where I wanted to go, but he didn't get it. I told him to just drive and I pointed to tell him how to get there. I'm actually pretty familiar with this area of
When we got back and unloaded everything, Shannon and I went out to see some boxing. Neither one of us were very interested in it, but the tickets were free and we wanted to get out and do something. (I'm going to be so sad when she leaves and it's just ME!) So we hopped in a cab, showed him our ticket, and he dropped us off...with the gymnasium no where in sight. I hate it when they do that!! So we just got out and started walking...showing my ticket to people every block or so trying to figure out where to go. About 10 minutes later, we finally found the gymnasium. I don't why cab drivers do that...maybe just to Americans because they don't like us! :) Anyways - when we got in and found our seats, they were terrible...almost at the very top. That's probably why they were free! :) So we just decided to put our ticket away and walk down closer. We sat down in two empty seats, and this Chinese guy behind me tapped me on the shoulder as SOON as I sat down and just said, "NO!" and shook his finger at me. Haha! Okay okay -- we got up and found two other seats...jerk. We could at least see what was going on now!
Turns out I don't know the first thing about boxing, and neither did
So that was it, we went to bed and I just woke up a little bit ago. It is so much nicer to be here at an apartment where I can unpack and have some space. Living out of hotels was about to drive me crazy! Today we are going to a baseball game (Japan vs somebody) and then basketball tonight (
I'll write more tomorrow (or tonight if I have time!) :)
-TK
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