While me, Terri, Paul and Chris (three other USOC employees) were taking a few hours of down time at the Great Wall, the Team Leaders whom we brought out here to see their Olympic venues were on a scavenger hunt. Our International Games Division is quite inventive and came up with a Beijing-wide scavenger hunt to make these representatives from each sport learn their way around the city. It’s hard to explain to your athletes how to navigate the pitfalls and share helpful hints for getting around it if you haven’t done it yourself. Chances are that cabs will be a very competitive commodity during the Games, so our folks wanted to make sure the Team Leaders used all resources in the city.
They were divided into groups of three and given a relatively small amount of money and a digital camera and sent on their way. They had to come back with a train ticket, a picture of themselves riding in a rickshaw (bicycle taxi), a picture of themselves with a waiter where they had lunch, a picture of one of the various Olympic countdown clocks around the city, a unique gift from the Silk and Pearl Markets, a picture of Chairman Mao’s portrait hanging on the outer wall of the Forbidden City, a picture of the Olympic mascot figures in Tiananmen Square, had to find out how many floors were in the hotel that will serve as headquarters for the IOC during the Games, and they had to trade an Olympic pin for something.
We all met up in a restaurant in a park near the Forbidden City to have dinner and each team gave a report of their adventures. The evening was hilarious and proved that the day was a very worthwhile adventure for the Team Leaders! They relayed tales of adventures like the rickshaw driver stopping at an unfamiliar area of the city halfway to their destination and changing the price of the ride to waiters and random people bending over backwards to help them find their next object on the scavenger hunt list. It turned out to be a great team building exercise and they came up with some great items to present.
So, our day ended up with some interesting food accompanied by a live traditional Chinese music performance during dinner. Today we have meetings in the morning here at the hotel then we visit a venue site in the afternoon. Until tomorrow. . .
%20Mao%20on%20forbidden%20city.jpg)
While me, Terri, Paul and Chris (three other USOC employees) were taking a few hours of down time at the Great Wall, the Team Leaders whom we brought out here to see their Olympic venues were on a scavenger hunt. Our International Games Division is quite inventive and came up with a Beijing-wide scavenger hunt to make these representatives from each sport learn their way around the city. It’s hard to explain to your athletes how to navigate the pitfalls and share helpful hints for getting around it if you haven’t done it yourself. Chances are that cabs will be a very competitive commodity during the Games, so our folks wanted to make sure the Team Leaders used all resources in the city.%20Olympic%20countdown%20clock.1.jpg)
They were divided into groups of three and given a relatively small amount of money and a digital camera and sent on their way. They had to come back with a train ticket, a picture of themselves riding in a rickshaw (bicycle taxi), a picture of themselves with a waiter where they had lunch, a picture of one of the various Olympic countdown clocks around the city, a unique gift from the Silk and Pearl Markets, a picture of Chairman Mao’s portrait hanging on the outer wall of the Forbidden City, a picture of the Olympic mascot figures in Tiananmen Square, had to find out how many floors were in the hotel that will serve as headquarters for the IOC during the Games, and they had to trade an Olympic pin for something.%20menu.0.jpg)
We all met up in a restaurant in a park near the Forbidden City to have dinner and each team gave a report of their adventures. The evening was hilarious and proved that the day was a very worthwhile adventure for the Team Leaders! They relayed tales of adventures like the rickshaw driver stopping at an unfamiliar area of the city halfway to their destination and changing the price of the ride to waiters and random people bending over backwards to help them find their next object on the scavenger hunt list. It turned out to be a great team building exercise and they came up with some great items to present.%20Chinese%20music%20sarenade.jpg)
So, our day ended up with some interesting food accompanied by a live traditional Chinese music performance during dinner. Today we have meetings in the morning here at the hotel then we visit a venue site in the afternoon. Until tomorrow. . .
No comments:
Post a Comment