Sorry!

Well the time, or lack thereof, caught up with me and for the final week in Guangzhou I was unable to update the blog. Due to a slow internet connection at the Athletics venue, it made it virtually impossible to login to the computer in Seattle that I used to get on blogger.
I will spend some time this week now that I am home, updating the entries that I couldn't add while I was there. I just want to add the entries so one day I can look back on them and have those memories in writing.
Thanks to everyone who read the blog for this trip. I enjoyed it!

Sleepy time

The long hours we have been putting in seven days a week is starting to add up. While it's an amzing experience to work these games in Guangzhou, it is still work. Since sleep is a premium we find ways to take it wherever we can. Here is a sampling of a few of my colleagues catching sleep around town. I will add more as I see it.

Dadswell catching up at the track workroom

Ronald and Carl in the car

Justin, Jamie and Mark on the track

The flat tire

Adam and Lo Ke changing the tire. I helped by snapping a photo

Driving in Guangzhou is a bit of an experience. There are traffic lights, painted lanes and turn signals, but the majority of the drivers here don't like to use them. While most of the time it just seems to work, most of the time there are horns being honked, lights flashed and an occasional diu (F' You).However, after all this, so far so good on the driving. Between taxi's, buses and our drivers, we have been surviving out on the streets. Of course though the one day we need to be somewhere, we get something completely rare on the steets of Gaungzhou -- a flat trire. L:iterally every road we travel on has a fresh layer on asphalt. However, yesterday on our way to the syncho swimming, we blew a tire on the brand new Honda SUV. Not exactly sure how, but it literally cost Getty Images photographer Adam Pretty some amazing photos. Adam had worked previously with the Chinese synchro team so they said he could shoot warmups from underneath the water. Even with the tire fiasco, we made the warmups by literally two minutes.

Bizarre Foods

I heard tonight the Travel Channel showed it's most recent episode of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern on Guangzhou. It should be a pretty crazy episode because the reputation of Guangzhou is a city that will eat everything that walks, crawls, flies, or swims. I have done my best to not get too crazy when it comes to the bizarre food here but sit's hard to avoid seeing them on menus.



One item on the menu last night at dinner.

 Check out the Travel Channel site for more info: http://www.travelchannel.com/TV_Shows/Bizarre_Foods/Episodes_Travel_Guides/Episode_Guangzhou


November 21 - -I tried pigeon tonight at this very local restaurant our driver brought us to. I tried some of the breast meat. Ehh, not my favorite. The driver ate the whole thing, but left the head. Yes, it comes head and all fully attached.

The attack of the killer Mosquitsos



Similar model to the one in the room



When I arrived to my apartment last week, they had a bunch of stuff laid out in the room. Free shampoo, unbrella, drinks, etc. When looking further Ronald and I noticed a box that had a mosquito on it. We opened it up and it was some sort of device you plug into the wall that is suppossed to kill mosquitos.  Ehh, we both thought this is wierd and through the box back under the nightstand where we found it. We even asked a local guy who lived here if there were a lot of mosquitos and he said no. I get bites every now and then but not someone who typically worries about it when traveling. Well, if there aren't a lot of mosquitos in Guangzhou the few that are here must have found me. I got nailed yesterday as I have like 15 bites all over my feet and legs. Sexy huh? They itch so bad. Luckily last night I was able to find a Chinese drugstore that sold me some lotion that has helped the ithcing. Today has been better but I'm still covered in bites. I've been a mess the last two days because of it. The first thing I am doing when I get back to the media housing is plugging in the anti-mosquito thingny. Lets hope that thing does it's job.

Random Asian Game Notes

* Chinese Public Security has reported no major security incidents. Traffic security has inspected more than 2.7 million vehicles and more than 5.3 million passengers.

* During the Opening Ceremony more than 100,000 police officers were on the streets of Guangzhou with 117,000 manning the torch relay ahead of the Games.

* As previously announced by the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau, the total budget of the Bureau's security arrangements for the Asian Games is RMB990 million.

* There has been 399 random sampling inspections of food and raw materials

* Civic officials report no public health incidents.

* Some 226 on-site food supply and safety assurance teams work 24 hours a day to keep real-time supervision on all Asian Games service providers.

* 10,410 athletes, 4,817 technical officials and more than 9,000 accredited media reporters and members from different countries’ youth camp checked in the Asian Games Town.

* More than one million cars have been removed from the city streets.

The Bad News Bears

I do love the jacket on their 1st base coach

A swing and a miss

I'm a big fan of Mongolian BBQ as there is a place in my neighborhood where a big group of us go to have dinner every few months or so. That's my extent of knowledge of Mongolia minus a few jokes from an old South Park episode. When I saw they had a baseball team here at the Asian Games, I was confused. Baseball in Mongolia just wasn't something that sounded right. When I looked at their roster and realized they only has 12 players (a MLB roster has 25 as do most of the Asian Games teams) I knew they were in trouble. When I saw them warming up and they couldn't throw the ball from third to first I knew their Asian Games experience would be short-lived. Well after three games they have lost 15-0 to China, 25-0 to Thailand and 24-0 to Japan's amateur teaam. To think it could have been worse if there wasn't the salughter rule after five innings. That's a total of  64 runs allowed in just 15 innings. Plus, in those 15 innings, they managed a meager three hits, all of which were singles. Looks like the Mongolians should stick to the BBQ and let the other countries play baseball.

Hello Korea

Being interviewed outside Tianhe Stadium

On our way to the Badminton tonight, I got stopped by a couple of Korean girls asking me if  I would take part in an interview. After chatting for a few minutes we found out they worked for Samsung and were putting together a piece about the Asian Games for Samsung and their school. I think being that there are very few Westerners walking around all of us from Getty Images have been targets of interviews. Most of the interviews I have done in Guangzhou, the interviewer can barely speak English so it makes it incredibly hard for us to have a good conversation. Today was different. We had a quick chat about what we liked about Guangzhou, the last time we were in China for the Beijing Olympics, and the media village where we live. Ronald, always ready with his camera, snapped off a few pictures. The girls then asked myself, Carl and Ronald to pose for a picture with them.

They asked us to do the peace sign.