Now, it's official....

Just got back form the venue tour. I was very excited this morning and woke up with a spring in my step. I was looking forward to all the sights and all the great pictures of the city and Olympic venues that I would get.... then we got to our first venue........National Stadium, affectionately named "The Bird's Nest"

I am not even sure that the untrained eye will be able to spot it in this picture thanks to the infamous smog that blankets this otherwise beautiful city....Not sure if there are any SNL fans reading this blog, but Chris Farley's "Lung Brush" could come in very handy here! We did have a great tour nonetheless. The group I was with was a ton of fun. We paid attention, but laughed a lot along the way.

I have been completely blown away by the architecture here! All of the Olympic Venues are stunning (from what we could see). The Bird's Nest, the Water Cube (where all the aquatic events take place), the Basketball stadium are achitectural feats. Unfortunately, we were unable to get out and go up close as they are all sectioned off for security reasons until closer to Games Time. I will definitely upload more pictures then.

Today was very informative but, once again, a ton of info. It was all logistical planning today.  We did stop for lunch and were entertained by locals who sang, danced, did the Chinese conga through the crowd and got a bunch of the staff up on stage dancing. It was fun.

I thought the food was great. It was the first time since I have been here, I am loathe to admit, that I have had 'authentic' Chinese food. Some of the people at my table were a bit iffy on some of the dishes, but I thoroughly enjoyed everything.

Jen is gloating in this picture that she won a bet. She said at the beginning of the meal that "no matter what was being served, there would be watermellon".... She was right! Here in Beijing, every dessert that we have had has included watermellon. I think she won a whopping 5 yuan (which is about 74 cents).

The tour continued after lunch to the remaining Olympic Venues. Jet Set has a hospitality centre located right in between the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square and this was my last stop on the tour. You see, after that, the busses were going to continue to the Silk Market (Which I will blog about soon no doubt) and then drop people at their respective hotels. Jen, Jason and myself had a brainwave, however - they do happen once in a while - and seeing as we had all been to the Silk Market before, we ran for the hills - we had been couped up for 8 hours -it was time to get off the bus!

We had noble intentions, however. We had received our Olympic accreditations the day before and needed to get them validated (the entire staff does actually) and the validation centre was a two minute walk from where we jumped ship. So Jen, Jason and myself took care of business. Now we can all just concentrate on executing our programs and have our errands out of the way.

Jason and I holding our newly validated accreditations... it's official, I am a part of the organizing committee.

I did see a few funny things that entertained the English major in me during my travels today - namely certain street signs. I love taking photos of signs from around the world... here are two that I came across today:

This one reads "Safe Traffic for the Olympic -Smiling Beijing Traffic Police"

This one we just couldn't figure out. It was in a parking lot. I guess nobody is allowed to play thier bugle at this particular hotel parking lot?

That's it for now... not sure what is on the schedule for tonight. All of us have kind of split up now as we have broken into our individual programs. I will keep you posted..... pun intended.