Saturday, April 24, 2010
Today is my final day in China and the first day where we did not have school visits or conferences during the day. So, an associate principal from Hudson High School in Hudson, Wisconsin and I decided to go see the Olympic Village, site of the 2008 Olympic Games and Beijing’s famous Silk Market.
We took the subway to the Olympic site and that was a pretty neat deal. The subway system cleans, efficient and very fast. That ride was very fun. When we got to the Olympic Village plaza it was amazing how massive just the plaza area, where people walk, was. It was a HUGE area. We walked large sections of bells and drums that were used in the opening and closing ceremonies. The Olympic torch was very large, reaching into the air at least 20 stories. Of course we immediately saw the “Birds Nest” and the architecture of that building was extremely impressive. The inside of the stadium was like a lot of the Division I football stadiums. There was a large field, which was being rolled, and two big video screens at either end of the stadium that was playing highlights of the 2008 games. There was of course an eight-lane track and I remembered the “Bolt” from Jamaica setting the world record in the 100-meter dash. Of course many pictures had to be taken inside of the “Nest”.
After going inside the stadium we were besieged my vendors on the way out selling kites, “Rolex” watches and many other items. The plaza was fairly filled up with tourists. People had cameras out taking pictures. There was a group of about 15 people that had a speed skating oval set up and were “speed skating” with roller blades. There was the indoor facility, a mammoth convention center and of course the famous swimming venue, the “Cube”.
When finished taking a lot of pictures, we went back to the subway proceeded to the Silk Market. Like a gigantic flea market, the Silk Market has everything one could imagine to purchase practically. But there were also things there that one does not normally see at a flea market. Things like fine jewelry, clothes, racks and racks of material (particularly silk) and tailors to measure someone and within twenty-four hours have a custom made suit, dress or jacket ready for you.
In the late afternoon, for our last official get together before getting things ready to return to the United States we went to an incredible Chinese (of course) acrobat show. As you may be aware, we have had Chinese Acrobats perform at Helfrich Park nearly every year for the past six years. Those are great shows but the performance we saw Saturday night was a notch or tow higher in some of the stunts. Besides the tumbling, dancing, pyramid making and body testing we have seen at school, this show also included some very high stunts in which the artists kicked things on top of their head into bowls. Additionally there was a stunt where one lady was riding a bike and TWELVE other gals made like a huge bird on either side and on top of her.
