Yep, that's the reality of it.. ..as tickets cost that much. Y'day, BadFever saw a person who was confiscated for scalping tickets from another person. The buyer was arrested but the seller did not. Only those who pre-ordered the tickets are the lucky ones. Actually for the badminton event, a local broker bought a bunch of badminton tickets, expecting many2 Indonesians to come and support their players. Thus the mark-up prices. But apparently, it turned out to be somewhat of a disappointment because not many were sold. If Tarek is in the Press Area, then the only way to contact him is through Mr. Fault. But even so, if Tarek is reading this, he should be able to read this thread and give us his HP no....But he hasn't, yet..
Unfortunately I didn't get an accreditation for the Olympics. Thought i could have one, but it's very selective !
The 1st get-together was great!!.. ..so, we finally had our small get-together, minus 2 other people. Abby飘 came with her other 2 friends to cheer the CHN's players!! Yes, we do have pics and fortunately, they were taken with other people's camera. I also have pics of Abby飘. Unfortunately the bad thing is........my digi. camera is..............................(temporarily) lost (in the taxi) and it's all my fault for forgetting it!!!!:crying::crying::crying::crying::crying::crying::crying::crying:
what???????????// u lost so your camera in the taxi?? u must be too excited after watching yesterday`s match though
1. ctjcad 2. Syaoran_Style 3. BadFever 4. Fengwei (Host & coordinator) 5. Abby飘 6. hcyong 7. Loh 8. Mr. Fault (depending on assignment) 9. LI De Quan 10. seawell 11. kemana 12. Glasger 13. Smash_1 (BadFever's friend from Aussie) 14. Jennifer (pjswift's friend) I would like to join. Can someone tell me where do we meet after the morning session ?
^^Need your Beijing contact no.^^ ..sjoe, in order for us to communicate, please PM me or post your Beijing sim phone no. That way we can contact you. The place of the gathering was posted a few pages ago in this thread. We're planning to gather in the afternoon after the morning session.
Last get-together for BCers.. ..will be held today in the afternoon after the morning session, around 2:30ish til 3:00pm. We will play a bit of baddy and then head on over to have a small dinner afterwards. For those interested to join us, this is my Beijing HP no.: +86 15010591014 Hope to see most of you there today!! *George, the get-together pics will be posted by other BCers..
Ik was loads of fun. The courts and venue was amazing! Really luxurious! Glasger had picked the very best for us, thanks again! He even managed to invite the China Universities Men Singles Winner to come and play with us. This 21 year old badminton plauer won the National Title for University players in the Men Singles! He is theoretically a team-mate of Chunlai when Chunlai goes back to Beijing University to finish his study and play for his school team! I tried playing him, but his skill is just out of this world... We played one set, it was like 21-10 for him, and at the end I was just nearly dead! Afterwards, we went to Quanjude and had a nice Duck meal. Waiting was 45 minutes, but well worth it.
Hey...10 is not bad at all....I may get 3 or less..... did you bribe him by telling him you would treat him duck meal?
If not mistaken.. ..the wait was around 1 hour, plus or minus; we came around 7 pm and weren't seated til after 8 pm...All in all, Quanjude is okay, not great not bad. But i guess the price comes with the name. Quality/taste, IMO, is just so so...And guess how much we paid for the dinner @ Quanjude -- around RMB700 (more than $100) for 6 people!!! Can't wait for all the get-together pics, taken by our other BCers, to be posted here!..
^^..^^ ..Yes, i saw the end of the 2nd set & whole 3rd set (from the subway waiting area). Apparently, after i reached back to my lodging, my other roommate told me CCTV had stopped broadcasting the medal ceremony, right after they won....So, no, i didn't watch the medal nor the flag-raising medal ceremony of the INA pair........But i'm happy that the INA pair won the Gold (so INA can be proud), but my heart is as a U.S. fan...
Some Souvenirs from Beijing Olympics 2008 I wish I had a bigger luggage bag so that I could carry all the souvenirs I wanted to buy but did not. Anyway here are some that I managed to get my hands on:
Loh, one day, I will have to visit you and look at that medallion souvenior again. Nice. Glad you managed to ride your bike with all that together with your luggage, camera equipment plus tripod.
sjoe, where were you? Nice to meet up with everyone, except for Mr Fault and Glasger. Beijing was nice. My only regret is that my stay was too short. I did not even manage to go to Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City. I saw most of them on the first day (12th) itself (bought a 700 yuan ticket which originally cost 50 yuan), Chris (ctjcad), Tarek (Syaoran), seawell (now I know why he is called seawell), kemana (still don't why she is called kemana), Jennifer, Kevin (badfever), fengwei, Jason (Smash_1), Abby (only saw her but did not greet as she was very into the cheering business, and that night her idols Gao/Zheng lost to GB pair). The next day (13th) after badminton, Kevin, Jason, Loh and I had a weird lunch, where Kevin and Jason refused to touch half of the dishes. We later went to the Wangfujing shopping area. Loh and me were too full for dinner as we had to try to eat as much as possible during lunch. But nice surprise, the ice kacang (shaved ice with sweet things put over) which Loh and me shared were very nice. On the 14th, Loh and me went to watch table tennis in the morning. We saw the cute Ai Fukuhara playing. The Japanese female supporters had anime voices, very high-pitched (Ai-chan, gambate!). I though those high-pitched girly voices are only in anime, actually in real life also got. After that, we went to the silk market, bought a few souvenirs, then got ourselves to the badminton arena. On the 15th morning, table tennis again (boorinnnng...). In the afternoon, went to the Great Wall in Badaling. Wow! Great weather as well. I'm sure Loh will post some photos. Just wait for it. Later that evening, Loh got a free ticket for badminton where he saw LCW beat LHI. I went to the Bird's Nest and Water Cube instead. Nice. Loh and I only managed to see Li De Quan on our final day (16th). He was so nice, he came all the way from his cousin's house to our hotel at 8 am. He must have started quite early. We watched Lu Lan lose to Maria Kristin on TV before we had to leave for the airport.
Tips when travelling with Loh 1. If your trip involves a flight (where you both go separately to the airport), make sure he gets to the airport on time. Twice I have travelled with him on flight, and both times, he arrived just in the nick of time. This time, he promised to meet the agent at 7:30 am but only arrived at 9:00 am just before the counter closes. I was this close to having the whole hotel room for myself (darn...) 2. Loh needs his cup of coffee. Budget his cup of coffee into your plan. If not, you will find that after everything is ready-to-go, Loh starts to boil the water for coffee. 3. Be very patient. Loh takes pictures of absolutely everything, so just hang around and soak in the atmosphere. Or go somewhere and arrange to meet at a location if you lose each other. 4. etc Advice from, The long-suffering travelling companion of Loh ps. Actually, not that bad lah, if you prepare yourself for these few things.
I've been to Beijing and spent more days there to look around, so in that sense I'm luckier than hcyong. Indeed it was an opportunity for the scalpers to make some easy money but they had to take the risk in case they couldn't sell the tickets and in case of being caught by the authorities. But I read from this forum that only the 'illegal' buyers will be punished??? We paid RMB700 for a RMB50 ticket (preliminaries) but my colleague had to fork out RMB3,000 for a RMB400 Athletics (100m dash finals). In absolute terms this cost more but in percentage terms our RMB700 ticket is 14 times its face value against 7.5 times that of my colleagues'. I understand that the averge black market for the badminton finals was RMB1,000. Wangfujing, nicknamed Beijing's Orchard Road, was the venue for our meetings. This is an amazing first-world shopping complex in a so-called third-world country into which China is supposed to be classified. We spent some time together in this area shopping for souvenirs and taking lunch (BadFever, Jason, hcyong and I at the 'Old Beijing') and dinner (Chris, Syaoran Style, Leslie, Jason, Fengwei and I at Food Republic). This place has a peculiar payment system whereby you have to first make a cash deposit in exchange for a cash card to make purchases at the various stalls. With only one card to share among us, our orders took a toll and by the time we almost finished, the management had closed for the evening and we were among a few guests to remain in the building. In Beijing, most of the public places we visited are new, modern and spacious with a variety of appealing architectural designs. However, it is true that behind the impressive fronts of some of these modern buildings are the small lanes or hotungs that still capture the old Beijing buildings, atmosphere and way of life. During our departure morning on Aug 16, it was in one of these lanes near our hotel that hcyong, Li De Quan and I sampled some of the local dishes from the small shop-like restaurant. We had large bowls of beef and pork noodles and shared a big plate of dumplings.
Uncle Loh, that guy sit next to you must be our famous Li De Quan....very young ar...hahaha The noodle looks yummy to me...
