Olympic heaven

So it didn't start so well as having missed my original flight to Beijing, once in Beijing, I was told they had left all check-in luggage in Shanghai. Nice! I wasn't too fussed though as I had my Olympic tickets with me and was going to the Water Cube the following morning.

15 08 08, National Aquatics Center ("Water Cube")



It was the first day for athletics in the Bird's Nest, so the entire Olympic Green was mayhem. The site of the Bird's Nest and Water Cube was quite something.



The Water Cube was awesome. It is actually made of huge bubbles, which you can touch. Inside, the facilities are amazing. I couldn't wait for the action to begin. 3 of the 4 finals I saw were won by Americans and all in world record times - I was getting tired of hearing the US national anthem and about the "land of the free and the home of the brave"! Although I would have preferred another country dominating, one of those winners was Michael Phelps. The guy is one of my new sporting heroes. Comes on, wins the 200m individual medley final by a country mile, collects his 6th gold medal of the Games 20 minutes later and then no more than a few minutes later, he returns to win his 100m butterfly heat.

I was still buzzing two hours later at how amazing the whole experience was and was not going to leave the Olympic Green anytime soon. So I decided to wander around the entire Village. The official Olympic store was massive and for once I bought lots of souvenirs: Fuwa toys, fridge magnets, shot glasses, GB flag, t-shirts etc. Doe lunch I had some self-heating chicken with rice - very cool technology. I then got comfortable in front of a big Samsung television screen and watched gymnastics in the shade.

17 08 08, Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park



It was finals day and, unlike the swimming a few days earlier, there lots of medals chances for Team GB. The venue is quite far out of the city (north east). My seat was right along the finish line - fantastic view - and I had a huge GB flag too. I went berserk in race 2 of the day when GB's double sculls, Zac Purchase and Mark Hunter brought home gold. It was brilliant to finally hear the GB national anthem. GB picked up two other silvers that day, including narrowly missing out on gold in the women's quad sculls which went to China, which sparked jubilant celebrations all around the park. I even saw three crazy Canadian fans jump into the lake in between races.

19 08 08, Chaoyang Park Beach Volleyball Ground

Wow, what an experience. The grounds were within Beijing's largest park and once again Beijing delivered an excellent venue. I was there was the women's semi-finals. First up were the favourites US against Brazil. The US won but the main event was the second semi-final - China vs China.



I had seen a glimpse of one of the Chinese pair, Xue Chen and Zhang Xi, while waiting for my flight in Shanghai, and followed their progress through the tournament. Xue Chen is particularly beautiful and I'm sure will be a pin-up all over China after the Olympics.



Cheerleaders, some from the New England Patriots' cheerleading team, would come out during every timeout. During the all-China game, the cheerleaders were all Chinese! Cool music would play throughout the games and the atmosphere generally was unbeatable. Jing and Ed joined for the all-China game and some of Ed and my madness may have got us on the big screen.

A great experience although my "team" lost :(

19 08 08 Workers Stadium

I was at the Brazil / Argentina men's football semi-final game with Jing and Ed - can't get much bigger than this. Arch rivals with Argentina the defending champions and Brazil having never won the event - amazing! It was billed as Ronaldinho vs Messi, and Messi won hands down. Other than a few bits of skill from Ronaldinho, he was poor as were Brazil who lost 3-0 and ended with 9 players.

Before I game, it took us longer than expected as people were literally queuing to have a photo taken with me. I had brought a Brazilian flag and all the locals obviously thought I was from Brazil.

21 08 08, National Stadium ("Bird's Nest)

I couldn't wait to get inside the Bird's Nest. The place was awesome, absolutely massive. I was seated right behind the javelin throwers, but there was so much going on at the same time: decathlon high jump, javelin, triple jump and running. It was difficult to keep up. The crowd were really getting behind each javelin thrower and it had an exciting finish with the person in the silver medalist position sneaking gold with her final throw. I also saw some great sprint races. Veronica Campbell-Brown blitzed the field to win the women's 200m gold and the Jamaicans won the men's and women's 4x100m relay heats (the US dropped the baton in both races)! I also saw Usain Bolt pick up his gold medal for the 200m.

I had probably the most sought after tickets before the Games had begun as it was the 110m hurdles final which should have featured the defending champion, China's hero Liu Xiang. However, he got injured in the heats and didn't make the final. His rival, Cuban Robles, cruised to victory and to the delight of the Chinese fans (surprising). After this race, most of the Chinese fans left and I was free to roam around the stadium.

The men's triple jump final was in its final stages when I moved to within 5 metres of the sand pit in row 1, amongst many Portuguese Olympics athletes supporting their fellow countryman, Evora. He was competing for gold against Britain's Idowu.

Evora got gold to the delight of the Portuguese athletes and fans, while Idowu got silver. He did hear me and stopped for a photo - I've chatted to an Olympic silver medalist!



Evora came over and hugged each of his colleagues. The GB flag around my neck precluded me from this, although I was just glad to be amongst the fanfare.



I tried to reconcile differences between the two sets of fans by congratulating the Portuguese (and taking pics with them).



The whole evening was amazing. I wanted to hide and get locked inside the stadium so I could roam around further, but eventually had to leave.

20 08 08, Capital Gymnasium

Erika's colleague had spare tickets to the volleyball, which I jumped at when offered them. It was the men's semi-final between Russia and USA. Once again I had great seats, in row 3, amongst many Russians supporters. The US were up by two sets before Russia levelled and took it to a decider, but the US came through winners in a thrilling match.




The ten days or so I spent in Beijing the second time around were amazing. During the day, I was either at an event or watching it on a big screen in a bar or on the streets. In the evenings, I would go out, often until the next morning. Whitney has about as much discipline as I do, ie none, so quiet nights ended up being very messy indeed - shots at NanJing until 5am, drinking games until 3 in Goose Duck, Forrest's leaving do which started at Club Obiwan and inevitably ended at Anna's bar around 7am, and on my final night, I decided not to sleep and go straight to the airport for my 11:30am flight to Shenzhen. I even did some sightseeing this time around. I visited the colourful Yonghe Gong, a Tibetan Lama Temple, and the beautiful and very large Summer Palace, which I got a bus back from (very, very slow journey, but good experience).

It was an awesome time and certainly the highlight of my trip so far - I love Beijing!

Shanghai/Hangzhou: more great food and fun antics

Photos of my trip will not be on blog for a few more days as, very inconveniently, my camera decided it would rather not take photos of women beach volleyball players and so it died on me the night before. No fear though, as Whitney kindly offered her camera for use!

As soon as I got into Shanghai, I met up with Ed and his girlfriend, Jing. Ed and I had worked at UBS together and spent many torturous nights in the office together.

Shanghai felt larger than Beijing, and has some 15 million residents. The city is split into two area, Pudong and Puxi, separated by the River Huangpu.

We went to the top of the famous Pearl Tower on Pudong side (some 300m high), and witnessed amazing views over the city. It was skyscraper heaven, more than I had seen in any city before. Some of the buildings were truly spectacular, although the smog was very apparent in Shanghai too.

After some great Taiwanese (loved the mini dumplings), we headed to the trendy Xiantiandi district to watch the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics. I was very excited and the locals were very proud of the display put on by China to the world (although it did drag on a bit).

Ed and Jing had the weekend off so we decided to drive to Hangzhou the following afternoon. Hangzhou, is a beautiful city 2hr outside Shanghai, where Xi Hu (West Lake) lies at the centre of the city. It was nice to put the pollution aside for a day or so. We walked along one of the two causeways that sit on the lake and then had some great beggar's chicken (local to Hangzhou). Ed and I went out that night, settling at the SOS club. The music was great and they were celebrating an anniversary of some sorry. It turned into a messy night. I lost Ed after an hour or so as he fell asleep in some corner. I returned to my hotel around 6am (I think).

The next afternoon, once we woke up, we took the shortest of boat rides on the lake, apparently because visibility was low! We then rented bikes and rode around the lake. It was brilliant fun; I was honking everyone, practicing my limited Chinese on random locals, and we kept on ignoring security guards and taking forbidden, but very scenic paths along lake.

We then had dinner and headed back to Shanghai. I was shattered, but had to watch the eagerly awaited men's basketball contest between Yao Ming's China and the awesome US team.

The next day started with a bang - Rebecca Adlington won Great Britain's second gold medal of the Olympic Games. With a smile on my face, I wandered around Shanghai's shopping malls, met Tiffany (friend of friend) for coffee and had dinner with Ed, Jing and Jing's friend, Cathy, who like me also went to LSE.

We then went to Racks, a cool bar with loads of pool tables. I was off my game, but did pot one ridiculous ball - reminded me of my days in the Holborn bar at LSE! Across the corridor was a club called G Plus, where I chilled until the early hours with some random Chinese students who have been studying at Nottingham University.

On my fourth day in Shanghai, I thought I'd better do some sightseeing so went to the Old City and the stunning Yu Yuan gardens. The entire area was awesome, very different from the rest of Shanghai, much older, more quaint, small stores selling everything you can think off. This was topped by spicy frog's legs for dinner and a post dinner massage.

My final full day in Shanghai was to be very eventful. We went to Haiku for lunch, an excellent Japanese restaurant. I decided we should order the Wasabi Challenge Rolls. Vanilla, the waitress, looked at me in disgust when I ordered it! After one each, we realised why - it was brutal!!! I ended up have four of the rolls, thanks to Cathy. The photos are quite amusing and show all of us in substantial amounts of pain.

Ed and I then went to the Bund while the girls did their nails. The colonial buildings along the Bund were in atek contrast from the modern skyscrapers on the other side of the river, although once again the view was spoiled by the smog.

After admiring the view from the bar at the top of the JW Marriott, we headed to South Beauty for dinner. I had some of the best fish ever (it was inside out). I also had a very embarrassing moment where I mistakenly spat out a whole lot of watermelon juice after finding something quite amusing. The waitress was laughing for the next 30mins before we left.

Cathy, Ed and I went to Muse 1. I wasn't expected much, but the music in this club was excellent. The DJ was playing some great house, hiphop and old school tracks. Ed and I decided to get up on stage with the dancing girls, which seemed like a good idea at the time. We then went back to my hotel; I think I crashed around 6am.

I woke up fairly late the next day and had to get to Pudong airport for 3:30pm for my flight to Beijing. After some lunch, Cathy, who was flying to Tokyo, and I jumped on the Maglev express train, which reaches a speed of 431km/hr! I still missed my flight though, which angered me a lot as I was 1min late according to the member of staff, but Air China staff were having none of it as most of them are not allowed to use their brains and common sense, but instead follow rules. It did mean that I could watch the Chinese women's beach volleyball team in action - I was now a huge supporter of Xue Chen, but especially Zhang Xi.

Like my time in Beijing, I did very little sightseeing, although there isn't much to see in Shanghai, but I ate excellent food and had a memorable time. Big thanks to Ed and Jing!

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The holy mountain and birthplace of Confucious

I decided to venture out of Beijing for a few days, and explore Chinese history a little more.

Taian was my destination, home to Tai Shan, the holiest of China's five holy Taoist mountains.

It was my first time travelling in China without Chinese language assistance and it required much patience. I took an overnight train to Ji'nan and then planned to take a bus to Taian. However, before I bought a bus ticket, I bought two separate train tickets from Ji'nan to Taian by mistake. Anyhow, I got finally got what I wanted and the train tickets and bus ticket only cost me £2.50 in total!

Whitney introduced me to Kevin, who is ex English student at her school and lives in Taian. He and his friend offered to take me to the top of the mountain.

I was already exhausted from the journey to Taian and the mountain climb was brutal: apparently some 5,000 steps, and at a steep inclination. Once we got to the top, the view back down was awesome, but I couldn't help thinking it would have been so much better if there was no smog and I could see more than 100 yards into the distance. Pollution seemed to be a more widespread problem in China, not just an issue in Beijing.

The following day, I took a trip to Qufu, 80km south of Taian. Qufu is of significant Chinese cultural importance as Confucious was born here around 550BC.

I had arranged a hotel taxi to take me there and back, but I ended up having more travel partners. A trainee at the hotel came along as he wanted to practice his English and the taxi driver's wife soon hopped into the taxi as she had never been to Qufu before.

It was very hot and made sightseeing uncomfortable. We first went to the Confucious Forest. It's basically a burial ground for Confucious's clan, the Kongs. If you're really interested in exploring the forest fully, rent bikes from outside.

The other two main attractions, the Confucious Mansion and Confucious Temple, were awesome. The temple was first established in 478BC, but was expanded by emperors since, particularly from the Ming and Qing dynasties (14th - 18th century). Both places were very cool: many grand buildings, cool stone bridges, narrow alleyways etc.

The next day, I took a bus to Ji'nan airport and took a flight to Shanghai, my first flight in 5 months!

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BEIJING!!!

Finally I have arrived! I can think of no better place to be on the planet right now than Beijing.

The city is huge, there are people everywhere, but as a sports fanatic, it doesn't get any better than this. Olympic fever has hit the city of 15m people in a big way.

You can certainly question some of China's methods in preparation for the Olympics, but Beijing is a magical place right now.

I've been here for four days now and I have yet to see any of Beijing's top attractions. I've been too busy soaking up the atmosphere, enjoying the patriotism of the Chinese people, and their friendliness, and stuffing myself with the most ridonkulously good food.

One minute I am in Tian'anmen Square marvelling at the Olympic statues and figures, and within 10 minutes I'm in the jacuzzi in the adventure pool of my hotel, and an hour later, I'm having unbelievable Chinese food in a hutong with local Chinese people!

I've granted myself some luxury and am living on the corner of Wangfujing Street, the main shopping street, and Dong Chang An Avenue, which is only 300 metres from Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City. In the centre, it seems almost everyone has a Beijing 2008 T-shirt, there are volunteers everywhere and the police presence is large, but not intimidating, although the officers could smile from time to time.

The Beijingers are so happy that the Olympics are being held in their back yard. They don't seem to mind the restrictions placed on them during the Games. Taxi drivers must wear ties (sent to each of them by the Government) even though it is at least 30 degrees celsius. Cars are only able to drive in the city on alternative days: based on odd and even numbers plates corresponding to odd and even days of the month. Many residents have been sent pamphlets on how to behave during the Games: no public spitting (very common amongst men and women), no rolling up your top and showing your belly in public (a man thing), smile at foreigners, don't shake hands for more than 3 seconds, girls with large thighs should hide them, and it goes on! Sadly, i've been told many of the street food stalls have been forced to close, which is a shame as the food is supposed to be excellent.

It's so easy to get around town, yes there are lots of cars, but i've never been stuck in traffic. Fine they are only allowing half the city's cars in on any given day, but the Beijingers want to do it, so who are we to knock it. The subway is also very cheap and efficient. Security checks don't seem to have halted the transport network. All bags must be scanned before gaining access to Tian'anmen Square, but despite the masses, it only took a few minutes to get in. At Heathrow, this would take hours.

I have to mention the smog. The first few days I was there, I didn't know what all the fuss was about - beautiful clear skies. However, the next few days were very different - couldn't see more than 100 yards into the distance. I say suck it up and move on - no athlete is likely to be in Beijing for any longer than 2 weeks and it's the same for all.

I have been very lucky in that I have been shown around by sisters, Whitney and Erika. They are cousins of Adam's and have been teaching English in Beijing for 4 years and 1 year, respectively. They have given me the local experience, especially when it comes to food.

I've had some of the best food i've ever tasted and so much variety. The highlights have to be the Sichuan hotpot at Haidilao (with the public noodle making performance) and the double spice chicken wings in a hutong, so spicy that they keep on bringing you toilet rolls for you to wipe your nose, tears and sweat! Forrest, an ex English student, was loving it, but in pain at the same time. It was so hot, we both ate with our tops off - I felt Chinese except I don't have the belly.

The variety of bars is amazing! Nanluogu Xiang is a fantastic road with handicraft stalls and many cafés, restaurants and bars, many open 24 hours. On Saturday night, Cici, another ex English student, had her leaving party before heading to New York. It turned into a crazy mess ending at 5am, but only after a round of "flatliners" and some pole dancing with her at Club Kai - she's pro, I'm clearly not. After chicken wings on Monday night, the girls left Forrest and I to explore the city. After walking around Houhai lake and through several hutongs, we ended up at the tiny "Anna's bar" just off Nanluogu Xiang and stayed until 6am.

It really was a fantastic few days and the Games haven't even started yet. After a few days exploring Mount Tai, considered the holiest mountain by the Chinese, Qufu (pronounced choo-foo), the birthplace and residence of Confucious, and a few days in and around Shanghai, I will return to Beijing to see some of the events for real: swimming, rowing, athletics and women's beach volleyball! Can't wait!

Pics to follow later.

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Luxury "ger-ing"; Robbie Keane signs for Liverpool!!!

I left the nomad family for a few days at the Elstei ger camp, a tourist camp in the countryside, not far from Ulaanbaatar.

En route, I had a swift look at the Gandan Monastery in Ulaanbaatar. It has a 26.5 metre tall Buddha statue inside the main temple, made of copper, silver and gold, and is very significant as it was the only monastery that survived the Russians' attempt to eradicate Buddhism in Mongolia in the mid 1930s.

The tourist camp was very relaxing. I had my own ger and there was a restaurant/bar, and most importantly, showers. There were very few people there on my first night, but I met another group comprising Aussies (Michael and Julie), Norwegians (Eric and Elizabeth) and the Irish (Ross and Sarah-Jane).

The food was very good, prepared by Kumar, an Indian dude from Delhi. He doesn't often (ever) have Indian guests, so treated me to chai (proper Indian tea) and some Indian pickles. It was the first spicy stuff I had had since London as tasted great.

The next day turned out to be the most action-packed of my trip so far. I went horse riding in the morning, and for only my second time (first time was 7yrs ago). I started off with only one guarantee, my bottom would be very sore afterwards. It turned out to be brilliant fun. I found cantering too painful so galloped most of the way to a 28 metre tall Chinggis Khan statue that is still yet to be completed, but very impressive nonetheless. I even felt like I had some control over the horse for the first time in my horseriding career.

My 16yr old horseriding guide then surprised me when he asked me if I want to do some shooting. It turned out to be clay pigeon shooting in the middle of nowhere and the place also had a dart board and table tennis table, which was all good fun. They were surprised by my accuracy on the shooting (thanks to UBS/Heinz corporate events).

On my return to the camp, I played some archery, but it was the evening that proved most entertaining.

By now, the tourist camp was very busy with 50 or so tourists. When offered, Michael, Ross and I accepted, the chance to wrestle Mongolian wrestlers. Silly, and it got worse, as they provided us with local, traditional, skimpy costumes to wear. Brilliant fun and I think I won my fight, but very embarrassing (wait for the pics). We then played volleyball, but with a violent twist. Many people in a circle and if you fail to keep the ball in the air, you sit down in the middle and have to try and catch the ball as the game continues. The local experts had a great way of avoiding those in the middle catching the ball - they would hit the ball with force directly at those in the middle to avoid them catching it - it was fairly brutal!

Then followed a fairly heavy night of drinking, led by Claire, Helena and Elizabeth.

We would return to Ulaanbaatar the next morning for one night. As we walk into the hotel, CNN is on the TV in the lobby, and what do I see - Robbie Keane in a Liverpool top! I am overjoyed, and all the locals in the lobby thought I had gone mad.

That evening Ross, Sarah-Jane and I went to a Mongolian cultural show, which was excellent. There was a fashion show, traditional music and some really entertaining dancing. We then had a Mongolian barbeque to top of a fantastic 6 days in Mongolia.

The early morning train the next day to Beijing was packed full of tourists, many of which we had come across on previous trains through Russia and Mongolia. The quality of the train was amazing - wooden doors, a shower, TVs for each berth and the option of playing DVDs! Michael had a few DVDs and so we watched Bourne Supremacy and Death of a Funeral.

The border crossing was a fairly traumatic experience for all. They locked the loos about an hour before we reached the Mongolia border before any prior warning, and they were to remain locked for the next 6hrs, during which time we were not allowed off the train!

Leaving Mongolia was fairly straightforward, but entering China was not. I thought three forms and a thorough check of my bag and books was bad enough, but then some Chinese official came on and tested whether I was really a Brit Indian by asking me trivia questions about India, some of which were in Hindi. I was shocked, but passed the test. After changing the "bogies" on the train, we were on our way again.

The scenery changed from Mongolia's flat, sandy desert, to China's lush green valleys growing all sorts, but lots of corn and rice. There were beautiful mountains and rivers to see for miles as we headed into Beijing. By this time I couldn't wait to get into the city.

I will put some photos of my final few days in Mongolia soon, but right now I'm having to much fun in Beijing to spend time in an internet café, especially thanks to Erika and Whitney, but also Forrest and Cici, who are off to Vancouver and New York, respectively. Both these cities better watch out!

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