Dispatch: Beijing

How many Stephanie's does it take to answer a question? I will tell you at the end of this post. Who would have thought that Beijing would ever be used in a sentence with the phrase blue sky, but that is exactly what happened yesterday as our first Olympic experience occurred under pristine conditions. In fact we got so cocky that we were totally surprised and unprepared for the dinnertime downpour. We braved the elements and met Stefanie Dang (Lucas’ niece) for dinner at Dadong Kaoya Dian, a restaurant famous for its succulent roast duck. We ordered a feast and spent more than two hours at the big, open, modern and very popular restaurant, which makes it all the more ironic the we all spent the night performing our various renditions of the Beijing Bosa Nova back at the apartment.  Best Peking Duck ever? Not if you are the duck.

While we were waiting for our table famed TV chef Martin Yan walked through the door. I waved to him and he came over for a brief introduction and a picture with the girls. It turns out that he and Violet know many people in common. This is the second time during the trip that Six Degrees of Jackie Chan has demonstrated how truly small the world really is.

Taxis are extremely cheap in Beijing and very clean. The Mandarin word for taxi is taxi and once you find one you can get almost anywhere for $3 or $4. It is fast becoming our preferred mode of transportation.  I am blown away at how cosmopolitan and modern Beijing is: a vast improvement over our visit of a decade ago.  I just watched the sunrise, which is a very good omen in Beijing and can see the new CCT V tower from our window, which means that visibility will again be unlimited, so once the Imodium kicks in we should have another fantastic day at the Bird’s Nest. If the Russian women’s gymnastics team is outside exercising again this morning I am going to take some pictures of them.

Yesterday we sat at ground level 25-rows back from the track and today our seats are only 11-rows back. Since all of the seats in the Bird’s Nest are covered by its architectural canopy we don’t need hats, shades or sun block, but a few little American Flags would be nice so we could show a little nationalistic pride.

As dinner was winding up, but not the experience of dinner as it turned out, we couldn’t figure out the ingredient that flavored our shaved ice dessert. Although she very good at conversational Mandarin S. Dang couldn’t understand the answer, which left it to S. Mar to ask, in Mandarin, if it was persimmon. Now you know the rest of the story.