Lane's Adventures

We started this morning a little slowly, but when we were finally out the door, Chad and I headed toward the Hard Rock, where he wanted to eat and pick up gifts, but Ben had to stay at the hotel and knock out some work. The food at the Hard Rock was average and overpriced (even by US standards), as I expected. It was also strangely deserted when we arrived and gradually filled as we ate.

After we left, we noticed that there was a Starbucks nearby, so I stopped to get a replacement of the Beijing cup that I”d purchased yesterday because as I was running for a bus, the Starbucks bag gave out and broke the handle. Nearby was the US Embassy, and we wanted to check it out and see if we could get a tour. When we arrived, we showed the Chinese guard our passports and he let us in, but we found that there was no one in the first security checkpoint because of the holiday (they take off the entire week for the Chinese New Year). We thought we were locked in, but we finally figured our way out, so we were back on the street.

Ben had secured us tickets to an acrobatics show that was relatively nearby, so we didn’t want to head back to the hotel. Instead, we jumped back on the subway to the Olympic Park. I’m glad we did, because it’s quite a magnificent park (and I hadn’t seen it when I visited in 2009). The stadium, conference center, and all of the other Olympic venues are extremely well-designed and well-laid-out. Nearby there was also a mall, which was seemingly built for the Olympics as well. Although it was one of the nicest malls I’ve ever seen (in terms of cleanliness and size), it was almost devoid of shoppes. It looked to be about 25% occupied. Needless to say, in the US, this type of mall would go out of business. There were, however, quite a few people visiting!

Ben met up with us at the mall as I enjoyed a McFlurry from McCafe (some things really are the same). We jumped back on the subway for a longer journey to the acrobatics show. The show was absolutely phenomenal. In the first act, there was an acrobat stacking chairs on top of one another, to 30-40 feet high, and then balancing on each of them (sometimes on a single arm, upside down). Another pair of acrobats did a ballet number where the male acrobat balanced the female on his shoulders and head as she performed. The control and precision of all the artists was amazing. Another act included numerous female acrobats riding bikes in harmony, then ended with all of them balancing on a single bike while still moving. Finally, the grade finale was a sphere wherein motorcycles ride. It would have been impressive with one…two, maybe…but there were six motorists zooming around inside a sphere with the diameter of no more than 20 feet. Needless to say, these were some jaw-dropping, daring performances. What a show, what a day!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 at 11:26 am and is filed under China 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.