For breakfast, we decided we didn’t want anything natively “Chinese”, given that most of the breakfast offered here seemed to be something in a hot broth – the last thing we wanted after a morning jog. So I went to a local store and got packaged yogurt, bottled water and bottled fruit juice. The yogurt would turn out to be a trend for the day.
We then got directions to the place that we had to pick up our tennis tickets for later this afternoon – and with new confidence from last night’s subway trip, we decided to take the subway to that place. We had tickets to weightlifting scheduled from 10 – 2, but decided to take our time this morning since we had no need to see all of it – and the tickets had only been $5 a piece. We realized that the ticket pickup location was actually at the same intersection where we had turned around in our jog that morning, so we asked the agency where Tianamen Square was. When they pointed out that it was only a few blocks turning right, we decided that we couldn’t pass the opportunity up and headed down for a peek. When we got to the area, the sign indicated to go down into an underpass in order to go to the square. In the underpass, security was checking all of the bags and purses. However, what I forgot was that I was holding our two American stick-waving flags rolled up in a bigger 3 x 5 foot American flag that we were going to wave at the Olympic events. Having heard about the Chinese concern about any demonstrations at Tiannemen Square, I suddenly realized that having a huge American flag might not have been the best idea. Of course, they came up to me and questioned me about it, in very broken English. I got my excuse ready…and then said “Thank you” and passed me through. We went up into the square and saw the huge area where thousands were milling – and looked across the street to see the foreboding entrance to the Forbidden City with the picture of Mao on it. We took a few pictures and then left to find our Olympic event. We were quickly learning that everything seemed small, accessible, and walkable when looking at a Bejing map. But in reality, everything was further and took longer when you tried to get somewhere. We took a subway to the place of the weightlifting event, that was supposedly right at the building, but then walked maybe ¾ of a mile to finally get there. At the entrance of the event, then we had to walk another ½ mile. When we got to the entrance, it was fenced off and chained up. I caught the attention of a guard and showed him my tickets asking where the event was. He could barely understand and couldn’t communicate. He got the attention of another official who tried to tell us something about the event being cancelled and to come back later this evening. I’m still not sure they knew enough English to tell us what really happened or what the story was. Either the event had finished earlier than scheduled, or they had truly moved the event to a different time than what was printed on the tickets without being able to tell anyone. Of course, we had other plans for the evening and so we left. Our first event…wasn’t.
We then got directions to the place that we had to pick up our tennis tickets for later this afternoon – and with new confidence from last night’s subway trip, we decided to take the subway to that place. We had tickets to weightlifting scheduled from 10 – 2, but decided to take our time this morning since we had no need to see all of it – and the tickets had only been $5 a piece. We realized that the ticket pickup location was actually at the same intersection where we had turned around in our jog that morning, so we asked the agency where Tianamen Square was. When they pointed out that it was only a few blocks turning right, we decided that we couldn’t pass the opportunity up and headed down for a peek. When we got to the area, the sign indicated to go down into an underpass in order to go to the square. In the underpass, security was checking all of the bags and purses. However, what I forgot was that I was holding our two American stick-waving flags rolled up in a bigger 3 x 5 foot American flag that we were going to wave at the Olympic events. Having heard about the Chinese concern about any demonstrations at Tiannemen Square, I suddenly realized that having a huge American flag might not have been the best idea. Of course, they came up to me and questioned me about it, in very broken English. I got my excuse ready…and then said “Thank you” and passed me through. We went up into the square and saw the huge area where thousands were milling – and looked across the street to see the foreboding entrance to the Forbidden City with the picture of Mao on it. We took a few pictures and then left to find our Olympic event. We were quickly learning that everything seemed small, accessible, and walkable when looking at a Bejing map. But in reality, everything was further and took longer when you tried to get somewhere. We took a subway to the place of the weightlifting event, that was supposedly right at the building, but then walked maybe ¾ of a mile to finally get there. At the entrance of the event, then we had to walk another ½ mile. When we got to the entrance, it was fenced off and chained up. I caught the attention of a guard and showed him my tickets asking where the event was. He could barely understand and couldn’t communicate. He got the attention of another official who tried to tell us something about the event being cancelled and to come back later this evening. I’m still not sure they knew enough English to tell us what really happened or what the story was. Either the event had finished earlier than scheduled, or they had truly moved the event to a different time than what was printed on the tickets without being able to tell anyone. Of course, we had other plans for the evening and so we left. Our first event…wasn’t.
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