Well, the Olympics officially came to end tonight here in Beijing. Unfortunately, I didn't have tickets to the ceremony. Tickets for even the lamest of Olympic sports were pretty hard to come by, and the opening and closing ceremonies were considered the hardest of the lot. As a security precaution, tickets were not even transferrable for these games, meaning you needed to provide passport numbers and identification with each ticket. If your name didn't match the ticket assigned, you weren't getting in.
In any case, I watched the ceremonies from my television, which broadcast them on about 10 of the 50 or so CCTV government-sponsored stations here. Nothing compares to that opening ceremony, but the closing was very nice. If you watch, keep an eye out for the mayor of London, whose name might as well be Mayor McDoofus. Yikes, someone tell that guy to at least button his coat. He was my favorite part of the whole thing.
Well, that's not true. Although it may be a bit blurry up there, when the fireworks went off at the end, I got a fantastic view from my 24th floor hotel room. My hotel isn't anywhere near the Olympic Green, but I still got quite a show.
And while the games may be over, my adventure continues for one more day. On tap for tomorrow, a trip to China's must-see attraction: The Great Wall.
2 comments:
Loved the mayor! What a delight!
It was a toss-up between Mayor McDoof and the million or so Chinese men on drums! You should've heard the NBC commentator: "It's spectacular and kind of...intimidating."
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