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Published: August 14th 2008
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Thursday
14 August 2008
Okay, my heart still aches and I still tear up when I think about flying away from Beijing this evening, but that’s nothing that a healthy dose of denial won’t help!
To answer all of your comments… Nicaragua updates will be here, on TravelBlog, not on xanga. Yes, we did indeed go to boxing and it was AWESOME! More on that in a sec. Abeyta, that SUCKS that Mexico won’t show proper Olympic coverage…. in case you didn’t hear - and obviously didn’t get to watch, the Chinese beat USA for the gold in women’s gymnastics… which I am sure is getting different media coverage in the States than it is here!
So, boxing: I am taking part of Ben’s email to mom about it and putting it here and then I’ll add my two kuai worth. We were watching the featherweight and lightweight prelims.
Ben writes:
Yeah right about 12:30 or so we were probably on our way to Subway to get some grub before the matches. it's good to know that, even if they don't have my favorite sandwich here (chicken bacon ranch) Subway's still good. Ahhh good ol'western comforts.
Actually, there weren't that many people to fight through for our seats at all. Shasha was late (she's late for EVERYTHiNG o_O) so there was no line at security, and after about 9 cute Asian volunteers saying Hello to us, we got in and found our seats with plenty of free ones all over the place. Even when we went to the concessions there were no people in line!
So, as you can probably guess, the actual boxing was great. My first boxing matches, and they were for the Olympics! Phenomenal. sp?
The matches i will best remember were the first (China vs Brazil) because the crowd was, of course, off its rocker with excitement and we were all into it as well (we were the loudest in our section 😊.) Also of note was France vs Australia because i rooted for France but Molly and Shasha went for the Aussie. My dude was losing at first but then had a good round (oh yeah each match was made of four two-minute rounds) and he took the lead, and it was really close after that. But my dude won HA. =P
Also, USA vs italy was
good because the crowd got into it (and the three really loud Americans - us), most i think were for the USA dude but some (maybe just to be rooting for anyone BUT us) were for italy as well. But the American dude whipped him (9-1) so it's all good.
After those good matches and some other fair ones, the last 4 or 5 matches weren't as good because the skill balance was a little off-kilter.
Anyway, that was our Olympic experience. ^_^ We all had a great time.
back to molly:
So that’s about how it went. We had seats up in the gym, but it wasn’t very far - and we had a huge screen in front of us to watch the close ups and replays. Also of note was the Ukraine vs Russia fight which was freaking awesome. Obviously Russia and China are good friends and allies and there were a fair number of Russians at the fights… or maybe there weren’t that many, but they all had Russian flags and were running around the gym waving them and cheering…. at any rate, when the Russian vs Ukraine fighters came
out, it was clear everyone was yelling for Russia. Acutally, they were yelling for Moscow - “Moshige jiayou!”
Of course, as Americans we were rooting for underdog Ukraine. And perhaps somewhere in the back of my mind I was thinking about the politics of Ukraine’s independence and the Russian tanks that were barreling down on Georgia at the moment that we were in that gymnasium… Nevertheless, we were about the only three people cheering for Ukraine.
And, damn, he didn’t disappoint! They were pretty evenly matched for 2 of the 4 rounds, but then Ukraine started kicking the huge Russian’s ass! And as the fight went on, you could see the Ukraine guy BECKONING the Russian! Motioning the guy to come on! So much moxie!
So, yes, boxing was awesome. Love watching the sport.
My Korean Air flight leaves at 9pm. Two hour flight to Korea. Then I sit in Korea from midnight tonight until noon tomorrow, a lovely 12 hours sitting two hours from here. And THEN I have a 13 hour flight to Chicago. Where I sit for another FOUR hours before my measly one-hour-take-off-descend flight to St.
Louis. So NOT looking forward to leaving Beijing for all of the airport bullshit that lays ahead. Oh well. Home Friday afternoon.
And on that note, the laundry is done so need to hang it up. Going up to the old neighborhood today to do a “hutong crawl” of all of my favorite foods for lunch and then going to say goodbye to Joy and Mickey at the old school… I would just text, but my phone ran out of money two days ago and I wasn’t going to pay for any more minutes when I’m leaving anyway…
Mmm noodles, chuan’r, eggplant, guanbing…
***
Argh. Know what is AWESOME? That i just got dressed and am ready to head out the door and suddenly the thunder started rolling and now it's POURiNG. gah. might not get that hutong crawl after all... 😞
***
Okay didn't get to the old neighborhood 😞 But went to Sunlitun'r. My last day, have FiNALLY embraced the UMBRELLA. Have been fighting against carrying/using one the whole damn summer, but today i saw the light. Acutally, the lightening... waged through monsoon rivers and sloshed through puddles and slipped down the
yeah china!
china vs brazil. CHiNA! road, my head and bag snug and dry under my umbrella.
On that note, time to finish packing - which means shutting this down and putting it away. Assume that Korea airport has wifi... if not for free, then for a nominal fee. And believe me, with a 12 hour layover, i'll be blogging more. Or just watching hours upon hours of Scrubs. Either way, hope not to sleep all night so i can sleep on my damn flight tomorrow. We'll see how that goes...
Last post from China.... wahhh! 😞 ... ...
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Mom
non-member comment
Last Beijing Day for....Awhile
Oh, Molly, good choices for your last day in Beijing for...awhile. And you trek amid the hutongs alone, as has been your usual custom. Yes, you'll take away good memories of "your" Beijing from the Summer of 2008. BUT...can hardly wait til you're back HERE, on Spencer Creek Road!!!! :) Mom