Greetings!

It’s Friday and we are off to see the USA play softball against Japan. The venue was quite a distance from the hotel, in fact our longest taxi ride. The field was about 25 kilometers from the center of the city which meant a taxi ride of over $10. The complex held about 10,000 according to the information provided. Because of the rain on Thursday, the US would finish the game that got interrupted after the Japan game. The US was losing that game 1 – 0 to Canada in the 4th inning.

The US won the Japan game 7 – 0 in the 5th inning. That then led to the unfinished game with Canada. Perhaps being behind motivated the US team to get it together and win the game 7 – 1.

What to do with a free afternoon and evening was never an issue. The sun decided to shine and the temperature was cooler with less humidity. We traveled to the Birds Nest to look at this fabulous facility. In order to get inside, we would need to purchase a ticket. Sharon was elected to negotiate the best deal possible. Tickets ranged in price from 1,000 to 2,000 Yuan [$150 - $300]. Face value was about 400 Yuan [$75]. We did what most folks do under the circumstance and agreed to the maximum we would spend and then try and find the right seller. We were not going to call Brian. It worked well.

The facilities for the Games that we visited were simply fantastic. The Birds Nest was incredible. Some photos appear in the photo gallery and they do not do justice to seeing it in person. It holds about 90,000 people and while I am not always a fan of heights, this was not too bad. We saw the preliminaries in the men’s 100 yard dash. Other events were also going on at the same time, like the shot put and discus. We decided it was probably time to think about returning to the hotel and put some things in the suitcase.

Outside the arena, there were some additional opportunities to look at the complex. The photos appear in the gallery.

Three or four times during our visit, as we were talking photographs, people would walk up and want to have their picture taken with Sharon. For the most part, they were more mature women and men but Sharon made the observation that there were no people with white hair. It could also have been her personality but who knows where those photos are now!

No matter where we went, people would always say “welcome to Beijing.” It may have been the only words they knew but they wanted to say them to visitors. China has indeed welcomed the world with grace and warmth.

Until later...