Cancel those American Airlines flights

If you are booked on American Airlines go ahead and cancel that flight now. Chances are if you don't, then American Airlines will go ahead and do it for you. Yep, that's right ... not only did they cancel our flight out of Nashville on the way out, they also cancelled our flight back into Nashville upon arrival from Shanghai. It's like winning the lottery, except not in a good way. Our unhelpful ticket agents were not much use, which is why I am sitting here in Chicago at 4:30 am as a very unsatisfied customer instead of at home with my family who I haven't seen for two weeks (did I mention that we had students crying when they found out that we couldn't get home until tomorrow?). We had a great trip to China and the Olympics, but unfortunately the thing that will stand out for our students is the trouble we had with the airlines (American Airlines). Go ahead and cancel those flights now and do not book with them in the future ... ever!!!

Not in Beijing anymore

It has been an interesting experience for me, when native Chinese look at me and try to talk to me in their language, thinking that I will understand. I usually start talking to them in English and that does the trick. For the past few days we have been in Beijing which has been dressed up very nicely for the Olympic games (no doubt, it looks like a modern city with all of the modern conveniences).

Last night we travelled to a city named Taiyuan, which is midway between Beijing and Shanghai. It is a little more representative, I think of how the vast majority of Chinese live. It reminds me more of a third world country rather than the bustling metropolis that we just left, and the image that the government of China wants you to see. It turns out that Taiyuan is the industrial backbone of the country, supplying coal and power to the larger cities like Beijing (they actually turn their power off if it is needed in Beijing), and as a result is the most polluted city in the country.

We went on a sightseeing tour of a city that is supposed to be preserved in the old ways, called Pingyao. It was impressive, but kind of sad to see the living conditions of the people and their standard of living. One of the other professors made the comment that if you took one of them back to the US and showed them how we live, they would think that we were millionaires. Makes me think about my great grandfather, and now I can understand why he would risk disease and death to climb on a boat for months on end to land in a place where you do not know the language. I am greatful that he did this, otherwise who knows? I could have been on the other side of things today, watching some rich foreigners get off a bus wearing WKU shirts, hoping they would buy some of my trinkets.

The agony of defeat

This morning we walked to the weightlifting venue for the men's 77kg weight class trials in the snatch, and the clean and jerk (they take the weights lifted for each and add them together for their final score). The athletes get to decide what weight they will start off with, and then have three attempts. If they are successful in the first lift, they increase the weight (they can do this two times) ... if they are uneuccessful, they have two more chances to make it. Below is a guy from New Zealand who placed in the middle of the pack.

There was one American who competed (Chad Vaughn, below). He was successful in the snatch, but set his starting weight too high for the clean and jerk and was not able to lift it on three attempts. He was one of only two athletes to not have a score ... the second lifter, a guy from hungary, had his left arm give out on him as he was lifting the bar over his head for the jerk (to me it looked like he dislocated his shoulder, but others in our group said that they saw blood indicating a broken arm) and then had the bar fall on him as he was trying to get out of the way. Needless to say, he was in some pain and was laid out on the ground for a while before being taken away on a stretcher. I have not been able to determine his status, but hope that he will be OK.

Olympic Archery

Today was the second day of Olympic events for our group. We had a chance to view the women's single archery competition, in which the field of 64 archers went head-to-head (best score from a running total of 12 shots wins with the loser going home). Scores range from 0 (didn't even hit the target) to 10 (bullseye).

The pictures below kind of give you an idea of how far away these targets are.

Got a chance to see the number one rated womens archer in the world (from South Korea). The Korean fans were crazy ... the American fans were less than impressed.

Forbidden City

This morning we went to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Security was tight at the square (you had to check all of your belongings in to a locker, and could not even take a camera into the mausoleum where Mao rests). Below is a picture of the WKU group in the square (we also had a flag/banner made up saying WKU's Olympic trip, but security was not allowing anything that may even look like a protest to occur ... we ended up taking the flag picture out in front of our hotel).

The following pictures are from the Forbidden City.
Reference to the "Great Stone Dragon" from Mulan...

This is just a small taste of how big the courtyards are ... the grounds are enormus.

At the end is a nice "garden" area (complete with gift shops).

Let the Games begin

Today was our first day of attending Olympic events. Since getting tickets to a single event during the third phase of sales (for 40 people on three consecutive days) is nearly impossible (we managed to get 2 days all together) we had to split the group. Part went out to the canoe/kayaking competition, and the rest of us went to see team handball. The atmosphere was subdued because of all the security checkpoints, but in this case I agree with the restrictions put in place (it was kind of eerie walking up to the venue with only a handful of people who had tickets).

We saw two games in the women's preliminary rounds, the first was Angolia vs Norway. Although Angolia is one of the best African teams, Norway is one of the best in the world and easily ran away with the game. It was great to hear the Norse fans cheering and see them wearing traditional viking costumes (some people really go all out!).

This group includes Janie Seto (a graduate student from Western Washington), Dick and Chris Dressler (Dick teaches communication disorders at Western Kentucky), Beth Weimer (a recent graduate from WKU), Travis Teague (program director of motor sports studies at Winston-Salem State), Jim Hand (also a faculty in motor sports at WSSU), and Jamie Robbins (faculty of sport psychology at WSSU).

The second game was a little closer and pitted Germany versus South Korea. (Speaking of crazy fans ... the Korean contingent was large and loud, but very entertaining to watch). This game was faster paced and featured a lot of great scoring moves as well as timely defense by Korea. They ended up pulling out a win. It will be interesting to watch the rest of the womens draw and following the teams that we have seen in person.

Rainy days and Sundays

This morning we had lectures on matrial arts (a championship kung fu master came and showed us a few moves) and traditional Chinese medicine (read massage). I think the students had fun because today was a little more hands on than the lectures we have had the past few days.

After lunch at a Chinese restaurant (I am getting way good at using chopsticks by the way) we were supposed to go to a beautiful valley just outside of Beijing. Turns out it was closed due to the cycle race that caused portions of the Great Wall to be blocked was well. A few people were disappointed, but we went to the zoo and saw the giant pandas (among other animals). Then the rain came. I barely made it to the bus before the downpour (luckier than other members of our group). Not sure how it will affect the Games, but the weather this afternoon was not the best for outdoor sports.

We had the evening free to try to get tickets to events if possible. A few of us went down to the area that has the most arenas and tried to find the box office to see about tickets. Turns out that there is no box office selling tickets because they officially sold out before the start of the Games. It was not a wasted trip however, as we got some pretty nice pictures of the Water Cube and the Birds Nest just outside of the security gate. We were not even allowed on the grounds (security again) but should be able to see more tomorrow when we go to team handball.