Scavenger hunt in Beijing!

What a fun day today! The Internet at the hotel is super-slow tonight (and sporadic due to world events), so I'll have to add pictures to this post later. I wanted to describe the day though while it was still fresh in my mind. Today was a day off for the team and we sent them on a scavenger hunt. The athletes ventured out into Beijing in groups of three armed with a map, 200 RMB (Chinese currency), a camera, a watch and a list of things to accomplish. Being the competitive group of women that they are, they jumped right in and took off in taxis and subway trains on a mission! Their list of objectives took them to the Forbidden City, Tianamen Square, riding in a rickshaw, the Temple of Heaven, shopping in the silk market, the U.S. embassy and eating in the Orient Market. Their adventure ended by getting themselves to the Outback Steakhouse by 5:00 p.m. for dinner and group presentations on how their day went. After living the culture for a day, they were quite excited about ending it with Western food!

Two of the team staff and myself took off for a scavenger hunt of our own. The three of us had already experienced most of the sites on the athletes' list, so we had our own objectives to fulfill by the end of the day. We took the subway to Outback Steakhouse right off the bat to make reservations for the end of the day. From there, we found the addresses of apartments some of the athletes' families reserved for during the Games. It's hard for the athletes to focus on the Olympics when they are worried about their friends and families fending for themselves in a strange culture so far from home. It was helpful for us to put eyes on the neighborhoods and complexes in which they would be staying come August.

After our multiple address hunting, we took a taxi to the Beijing Harley-Davidson dealership. What a trip! With all the crappy little dirt bikes/mopeds/motorized bicycles you see on the roads out here, it was strange to see the shiny, LARGE Harley's on the showroom floor! I haven't seen a Harley on the road since I've been here and I have to admit I would be nervous (if not downright scared!) to ride my Harley in this city! The traffic is unbelievable and the driving skills are similar to what I experienced in Italy and Greece (i.e. crazy)!

From there, we taxied it to the Pearl Market for shopping and checked out the Temple of Heaven. It was built in the 1400s and is a complex of Taoist buildings that were used to pray to heaven for bountiful harvests.

The buildings are painted amazing fire-engine reds and should provide a crisp contrast between structure and sky. The day started out rainy but I was hopeful that the pollution would be lessened post-precipitation, but no such luck. The air hung so heavy with particulate matter and pollutants that the brilliant colors at the temple were reduced to a subdued pallet of hues.

Although chilly and polluted, it was still cool to see so many people outdoors on the grounds. There were folks exercising, playing a Chinese version of hackey-sack, playing cards, singing karaoke and playing instruments in the park. It's an open space area of the city that is certainly taken advantage of by Beijing's citizens and tourists.

After shopping and taking in the Temple of Heaven, we were off to the Outback Steakhouse at the Worker's Stadium to check in the athletes as they piled out of cabs and strolled up after a successful day of scavenger hunting. Everyone was full of stories, photographs and souvenirs of the day. We had some great chuckles over the adventures and misadventures of the girls' days.

We have an early practice tomorrow morning and then the final game of these Beijing Good Luck Games, so I'm going to sign off for tonight, but I'll try to add some pics to this story as soon as I can. Check back soon!