arrived in Beijing!

Hey everyone!

Well Nicole and I arrived in Beijing, safe and sound. Here we are in the main terminal of the Beijing airport. It was pretty crowded and all decked out for the Olympics!

I was star-struck on the flight over here from Shanghai! There were a number of Olympic athletes on our flight, sitting right amongst us! From what we could tell, there was the Swiss olympic team, which included track and field and BMX competitors, flying with us. There were also some athletes from Liberia, though I think they were all students in American colleges, and they seemed like track stars as well.

What really made my day was that a Swiss olympic female pole vaulter sat right next to us on our flight! I was starry eyed - and Nicole totally saw I was star struck. Her name was also Nicole (but short for something more Swiss), and she was a very down to earth girl, still a college student, but was the top Swiss pole vaulter in the country! She was telling us how the Swiss and Norwegian olympic teams were staying in a house together while they train, 2 hours outside of Beijing, and then would return to stay in the Olympic village with the rest of the athletes. All of the athletes get to go to the opening ceremony - I was so jealous. I told Nicole, "I wish I were an Olympic athlete." Here is a picture of Nicole, the Swiss polevaulter, and Alan....

My parents picked us up at the airport, along with their "chauffer" - their hired taxi driver whom they got to know. We had about half-hour drive to the Eastern part of Beijing city limits, to a town called Fucheng, and thats were my parents' condo is. It less than 6 months old. The way construction happens, is that you pay for the "shell" of the condo - the bare concrete walls and floors, and thats it. And then you have to hire someone yourself and choose all the amenities - from the walls, to floors, to toilets, to appliances, to curtains, to lights...everything. Apparently some people have just enough money to buy the shell, and then try to make ends meet and slowly build up their home, so some homes are pretty simple.

Here we are on the sidewalk/entrance road throughout the complex where my parent's condo is...
This is the main entrance, we are in building #12, one of the newer ones.

We are pretty jet lagged, as we took 4 flights to get here, so we did some grocery shopping, will go out to dinner, and will probably head to bed early. Tomorrow is the opening ceremony, so we hope to be down at the Olympic village to watch all the fireworks!

Talk to you later,

Alan and Nicole