Fragrant Hills Park

I had an excellent trip to the Fragrant Hills Park, which is very near to my hotel. A 30 minute cab ride dumped me out at a one way street with no gate insight. I took a 5 minute walk up the street past the locals to find the gate. To my surprise it had a chair lift to top peak!
http://www.kinabaloo.com/xiangshan_park.html

http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/beijing/30957.htm

http://www.btmbeijing.com/contents/en/btm/2004-05/features/fragrant

Water Polo Women's Gold Medal Match- USA vs. Neterlands

http://en.beijing2008.cn/venues/ytn/index.shtml

http://www.usawaterpolo.org/SingleNews/08-08-21/Silver_Medal_for_USA_Women_s_Olympic_Water_Polo_Team.aspx?ReturnURL=%2fHome.aspx
This is the view from where my tickets were for!! Excellent, thanks for the free tickets!!
We saw an usher and exchanged our tickets for ones that were a little better. This is the view from our new seats! The original ones are in the last section on the left in the second row up!

Nice USA hats, I doubt they work in the field harvesting rice!
Halftime entertainment was some drumming by these girls. There was water on the top, so it dancing as they banged away!

The US came back from being down at the beginning, but couldn't quite finish off the Netherlands, losing in the last 30 seconds on a power play goal. I had hoped to hear the Star Spangled banner played, but it didn't happen. The US is on the left, Netherlands in the middle, and the Aussie's on the right.

Wrestling- Andy Hrovat From St. Ed's

http://www.nbcolympics.com/athletes/athlete=1310/bio/index.html

http://www.cleveland.com/olympics/index.ssf/2008/08/hrovats_olympics_are_oneanddon.html

http://en.beijing2008.cn/venues/cag/index.shtml

Three matches went on at the same time at Wrestling. I had a great seat to take in the Freestyle action.

Next up- Andy Hrovat, Class of 1999 St. Ed's, and Michigan Alum!
Too bad my camera has limited zoom, but this is the best I could get. Andy wrestled on the mat to the right.

The match was exciting, but it didn't end up the way we wanted it to. Andy lost to the Cuban in the last 10 seconds of period 3.
I was very surprised to see a bus load of Iranians attending!! They all had custom hats and shirts, and the group included many women.

I ran into Andy at a party later in the evening!

Very Large McDonald's

The McDonald's at the Olympic Green (there is also a second McD's at the subway station) had the largest serving counter I have ever seen. There must have been easily 40 registers, and people lined up 4 and 5 deep every time I visited. Of course there was the usual line jumping, invasion of personal space, and elbowing, not to mention the need to bring the entire extended family to the counter at the same time to decided what to eat (not like they had 5 minutes in line to decide). It has over 1,000 seats!

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/beijinggames/entries/2008/mcdonald-s-is-loving-it-on-beijing-s-olympic-green


http://www.sltrib.com/business/ci_10226767 (They finally opened up the Green to everyone, so this article was written before the decision was made)

Everyone Loves a Parade!

Each float represented one of the themed Olympic rings with their corresponding Fuwa character. The red Fuwa is sort of a fire guy, so the float was represented with some fire!

This is a job that my buddy Kevin May would have. He would definitely get paid to drive a float with a funny hat on!!

These last girls were the same as the ones in the Opening Ceremony. They were all tall, so I suspect they were wearing big heels or even stilts?? They were also pale in comparison to the girls on the floats.

Night Shots from the Olympic Green!

The Today show is broadcasting live! Here is Matt Laurer, the guy that lost a lot of weight, and the two hens.

Water Cube, Pangu Hotel, National Indoor Stadium.
The torch is lit high above the Bird's Nest!
Lights at the Pangu Hotel stream over the sky!
All these light poles pulse with different lights along the Green.
Up close shot of the tower lit up!