Olympic Green: Birds Nest and Tennis Stadium!

September 8th, 2008

Today was another awesome day! This morning, our group walked from the hotel to the Birds Nest for some track & field events! This was the first time we had been in the Birds Nest since the Opening Ceremonies and it was beautfiul during the day! The torch was lit up and the stadium was packed with people. In track, we got to watch the 100 meter races, including the handcyclists and blind runners. The blind runner got to run with someone next to them. The two would each hold the ends of a shoelace so that the blind runner would know to run straight! How amazing is that? We also saw shotput and discus races, but they were not in visibility because we were on the other side of the stadium.

The Academy and I saw various countries compete including the Czech Republic, China, Great Britain. We saw the Czech Republic take home a Gold in the Shotput and China took home a Gold in the Javelin Throw, breaking a World Record! Go China! Go Czech Republic! Afterwards, everyone had time to walk around the Olympic Green. We decided to go the Chinese shops, known as the "Chinese Supermarket" and buy some more pins. However, these shops are all the way at the other end of the Olympic Green. We walked some of the way with our friends Sarah and Darius. We all stopped at the Olympic Green to try to figure out where we could catch a ride down to the shops. Bad idea! With two days of experience, Sarah and I knew that it wouldn't be long before someone came for pictures. We were right, a little too right! It started with one person asking for a picture with us, and they brought friends, who brought friends...and we ended up with 50 random people smiling with us taking pictures! The Chinese are also very big on peace signs and every picture had a Chinese people holding up two fingers! This chaos came to the point where Chinese grandmas were putting their babies on the laps of kids in the wheelchairs. The babires started crying, the grandmas started luaghing,our mouths became sore from smiling and our eyes were blinded not only by the sun but by so many camera flashes! Don't get me wrong, though. It was fun being treated like a celebrity! I'm not complaining, though. It's all the experience, right?

As I was saying, we were trying to catch a ride on a, if you will, "Chinese wheelchair accesible golf cart." I was very impressed with these Chinese carts. Basically, these moving golf carts could hold up to 5 wheelchairs and transport people and passengers around the Green. It's very fun to ride them! We all had lunch at McDonalds, and surprisingly, the place was packed! I can't believe how popular McDonalds is in China! Afterwards, we all started heading back towards the hotel. We barely made it back in time to catch the shuttle to the Tennis Stadium! Mom and I discovered on the ride that Beijing is huge! It took us an hour to reach the Tennis Stadium! Along the ride I took picture from outside and of the sleeping counselors!

Once we reached the Tennis Stadium, we were walking to the entrance and there was a sworm of Chinese spectators behind us! It was overwelming but I thought it was pretty cool! The Tennis Stadium was a huge stadium, also used for Archery and then there were smaller tennis courts devoted to seperate and smaller one-on-one tennis matches. We attended a small tennis match and saw Turkey vs. Finland play! What a great game! Finland won. There were such few seats in this court that the Academy took up half of them! It worked in our favor, though, because fewer seats meant that we had up close seats to the court. Next, we saw the Men's SIngles Open of United States vs. Chile. This American tennis player was ranked #1 in the world and he was so close I got to have conversations with him! The man from Chile was also an incredible tennis player! During the games, we met a young girl from California who was a member of the U.S Paralympic Wheelchair Tennis Team! We also met another man who played tennis on this year's Paralympic Team as well as an Australian player who gave me a pet kangaroo keychain. Thanks you so much! I really enjoyed watching wheelchair tennis! I have always loved tennis and wheelchair tennis looked very exciting so I really want to try it now!

Afterwards, the Academy went back to the hotel and we all had a nice dinner. The adults had a seperate dinner in the Hotel Restaurant, while us kids ordered Pizza Hut and and played games while eating in our lounge. It was a fun night for all of us kids to get to know each other more, eat Pizza Hut (it was delicious by the way, and my first time trying Pizza Hut), listen and dance to music, use the computers and play games. I had a great time hanging out with kids similar to me and I really appreciated this great night set up for us. Thank you KASSY, JOHN, DEAN, KRISTA and all the interns!

By the end of the night, I was so tired! I fell asleep taking a bath!