Peeking in the Bird's Nest

On Tuesday, I had my first opportunity to enter the sanctified territory known as the Bird's Nest, i.e. National Stadium. I had a ticket to Sunday's marathon finish but passed it up to catch the women's marathoners run outside through the south gates of the Temple of Heaven. I wouldn't say security into the Bird's Nest was particularly tight, but it was very long. To get from the line 10 subway stop into the stadium, a distance of several blocks, took over an hour. First, I switched from line 10 to line 8, a new subway line that only covers the Olympic area. Although on the map these two lines interchange, in reality you have to walk up outside of line 10, past rows and rows of scalpers, take a circuitous route all the way around a fence surrounding the plaza for the line 8 stop, then get into a long security line. Ticketholders patiently waited in the hot sun, the games beginning in the stadium as they stood there waiting their turn. Ten days into th sporting events, you would have thought this process would have been streamlined a bit. At the gate, bags were sent through an x-ray machine and spectators were given a cursory body check to look for weapons or other banned articles. Then we got into the crowded subway line. The subway inexplicably skipped the Olympic Sports Center (the stop right in front of the Bird's Nest) and continued on to the next stop–apparently, this crucial subway stop was never opened up for public use. This meant that we had get out of the subway stop, then walk the equivalent of several blocks back the way we'd come in order to get to the stadium. The events on tab for the day were the women's 200-m heats, women's long jump trials, and the javelin trials–with no gold medals on the line, there wasn't much excitement, but it was nice to see these events live after watching many on TV. My seat was in the last row of the lower deck–not an ideal vantage point. So I moved to the sand pit for the long jumpers, where I was barely able to get photos by pushing the long end of my cheap 55-250mm Canon kit lens. Really, you need a lens with a reach of at least 600mm to handle this sort of job. Viewed on the playing field in a stadium built for 91,000 spectators, the event participants were but little dots. Despite the hefty going prices for Bird's Nest tickets in the scalpers market, there were large swaths of seats still empty in the lower deck. The food on hand was the same as it has been for all Olympic events--Snickers bars, potato chips, biscuits, hot dogs on a stick. Nothing filling, and nothing representing China. The only good thing about the snack vendors were the prices, high for China, but only about one-fifth of what the equivalent would cost at U.S. sporting events. A can of beer went for about 70 cents, a hot dog cost about 40 cents. The best jumpers and throwers qualified early on, so we were left watching the others make vigorous efforts to grab one of the remaining spots in the finals. One of those disqualified was Leryn Franco, a glamorous Paraguayan model/athlete that Yahoo gossip writers have been jabbering on about. She finished second-to-last. Jade Johnson, a British jumper, was one of the better athletes still on the field–she qualified on her third and final attempt. Outside of the stadium, I got to see the most exciting event of the day. The Olympic Green (a misnomer, the color green is barely visible on this long Tiananmen Square-esque concrete sidewalk plaza) had long rows of fountains set to classical music. On this boiling hot day, many people, especially children, dashed through the water. This breath of spontaneity in a relatively stale Olympic environment made for many of the best photos I've been able to obtain.

I had a brief look at the Kodak exhibit (mostly, a bunch of card-reading photo printing kiosks), but mostly skipped the corporate displays, some of which I've heard were impressive to look at. Heading from there, I caught a gathering of people watching the China vs. China women's beach volleyball semi-finals, and sat down to watch it there with them on a super-size Samsung screen laid out before an artificial lawn. This was quite a game. Xue Chen and Zhang Xi won the first set in extra time, then were one point away from winning the second set but couldn't quite put the match away. They got several match points, then each time Tian Jia and Wang Jie would come back, dogging them. Finally, Tian and Wang took the set 29-27. Having broken Xue and Zhang down, Tian and Wang moved swiftly through a 15-8 tiebreaker and celebrating their victory in the sand, before going onto a loss against the unbeatable American duo of Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh in the gold medal match.

Having heard there would be a 'performance' at 3:30, I decided to stay in the Olympic area and headed to look for some food. The only restaurant in the Olympic village was a McDonald's. All the seats in the standard-size McDonald's restaurant were easily taken, so people bought their food to go and took it outside, looking for an awning to catch some shade. After grabbing a couple hamburgers, I went upstairs to walk around. Inquiring at an information booth, I discovered that the daily performances at the Olympic Green were merely performances by the "Fuwa" Olympic animal mascots--the same mascots who have been performing at football matches, beach volleyball, baseball, etc. I got the hell out of there and headed home.