I saw Jackie Chan. And Leehom. And Andy Lau. All in the one place.

Yes, that's right. And the big bunch of celebs was only a tiny detail of the giant, no, gargantuan spectacle that was the Olympic closing ceremony. And me and my boyfriend were two of the 91 000 people who had the pleasure of witnessing it at the National Stadium. How did we manage to do that? Himself, when he was back in Dublin a couple of months ago, bumped into a friend of his dad who happens to work for the Irish Olympic Committee. That very man remembered my man early last week and gave us tickets for the Athletics on Saturday night and the closing ceremony. The luck of the Irish indeed.

Anyway, so we ended up being the owners of two of the tens of thousands of open mouths in the stadium. And we never shut them for a second. What Zhang Yimou and his thousands of artists and crew offered their audience was simply beyond amazing. The colours, the shapes, the movements, the music- it was exciting, moving, happy, sad and perfect in every way. It's two days ago now, and I'm still relishing in the memories of watching this epic show from our very good seats. I still cannot pick a favourite part or aspect of it. I loved the drums and bells at the beginning, was stunned by the flying, hopping and twirling bodies, amazed by the fireworks, left speechless by the hundreds of acrobats on the giant tower, and moved to tears by the wonderful atmosphere of all the wonderful performances.

Though there was a hint of regret to the evening, as two weeks of unforgettable events were coming to a close. All the people who made this possible (and don't forget the fantastic volunteers here!) ensured that the wonderful time that was the 2008 Beijing Olympics went out with a bang, and that people who left the stadium, the city and its people would keep them in their hearts forever.

A good friend of mine said I was blessed to have been a part of this event, and she was absolutely right. The closing ceremony with all its colours, sounds and people is an event that I will never in my life forget.

Thank you Zhang Yimou, thank you staff, thank you volunteers and thank you Beijing!

Bis dann,

Nadine


PS: Now, of course, for the photos! There are two commented galleries here and here. And I'll add some of my favourites below, including a short video. Hope you'll enjoy it even half as much as I enjoyed being there!

All in blue this time

Drummers (in red) and dancers with yellow bell dresses

All the shapes !

The athletes have marched in once again.


Images like these, to me, are a testimony of the amazing things that people are capable of .

Beautiful, quite simply.

Bye bye, Beijing 08!

Athletics on Tuesday Evening

Yes, this bird has been to the 'Nest! After purchasing a single (class A!) ticket for, ehm, black market money, and after a crowded U-Bahn odyssey, I proudly stepped on to the Olympic Green and finally began to feel like the Olympics are really happening. The Olympic Green is the area that comprises the famed Bird's Nest and Watercube venues as well as the National Indoor Stadium, Hockey and Archery fields. It's a massive area, and it was full of people of all possible nationalities. Japanese, Lithuanian, British, Romanian, German and Swedish were only some of the flags I spotted. On the agenda for the evening were various mens and womens races (5000m, 400m and 200m with Usain Bolt) as well as mens highjump, mens 110m hurdles (though, alas, no Liu Xiang!) and mens disc throw (cooooool!)

The stadium appeared to have been sold out, and about half an hour into the events all seats were filled and the place was packed. The atmosphere was great, and I let out the Japanese in me, taking over a hundred photos until the battery gave in on me.

The events were scheduled to take from 19h to 22:40, but I left at ten, sweaty and tired from the heat and all the photography, and happy to have been a part of this big event. Find some of my pictures below.

Himself is coming over tonight for a long weekend, and it looks like the two of us may just be able to get tickets for another couple of events (one of which may just be the closing ceremony, but nothing's confirmed yet). That'll be some pictures! Poor battery.

Bis dann,

Nadine

There is it, in all its beauty!

Even all these people werent' able to hide the Watercube behind them.

Line-up for the womens 400m.. or was it 200m?

Gut gesoffen ist halb gewonnen!

A medal ceremony for one of Monday's events- of course my seat was on the wrong side!

Another womens race

Ja, wo laufen sie denn?

Mens high jump

This was our high jumper- like any respectable German, he lost miserably.

Mens 110m hurdles

A big old fella spinning around to throw a heavy old disc. Quite majestic indeed.

Beijing Beauty, Part 4: Community

What do many Chinese people do on warm summer nights? Watch Beijing opera? Go for a few drinks? Sit out on their balconies? No, no, and no. They gather in public squares and exercise together. Yep. They dance, play Badminton, do Tai Chi, skate, play a game I can only describe as "Badminton Football"- or simply have a chat. And I'm not talking just senior citizens, I'm talking all generations. That's teenagers, the fifty-plus generation, the working folk, even little kiddies. And they meet on any night of the week, even on Saturdays and Sundays, when, in our part of the world, the youngsters are out having a drink. And it's not like they don't do that here, but you do see many people of my (drinking) age kicking little badminton balls around with people three times as old as them.

I believe that this sense of community is part of the reason that fights, vandalism and other (drunk and non-drunk) misbehavior is very rarely seen in Beijing, and probably in all of China. And of course one can put the public safety down to the amount of security guards lurking outside each of these shiny new buildings, or to the fact that pupils and students are too occupied with their gruelling workload. One cannot, however, deny the magic of walking across a public square and seeing people standing in groups playing and chatting- family, friends, neighbours and strangers, of all ages and from all walks of life. This is something I've never seen in Germany, or in Ireland. Kids playing together? Yeah. Old people going for a walk? Sure. But not this wild mix of individuals coming together as one big, harmonious group.

Whenever I witness such scenes I feel that this is a harmony that has been long lost in the West, an ease that we have long forgotten. Happy Slapping? Wouldn't happen here. Drunk removal of traffic signs and retainment as trophies (greetings to my Irish friends)? Never. And you certainly won't read any news about pairs of teenagers playing football with the head of a pensioner, simply because they were bored. This is a community that sticks together, one whose members respect and care for each other, right in the middle of this vast urban jungle.

I wish we could be like that again. I really do.

Bis dann,

Nadine

PS: Of course, when I'm there to take photos of them playing at night, they're all at home watching the Olympics! Therefore I've only got a few photos of smaller groups, but I still find these inspirational.

Tai Chi-ing together (albeit in the morning)


My camera again- some people doing skating, while others are dancing and playing Badminton Football in the background

Three generations assembled outside my house around dinnertime

Xiexie nimen!

To everyone who has commented on this blog to date, and to all who have done so via Facebook, IMDB etc: Thank you very, very much! You have been a major motivation for me to keep up the bloogin'. Recently work has been very busy, I've been badly homesick, and the painfully black-and-white China coverage in the West has had me quite discouraged, wondering whether people would actually care for what I had to say. Reading back through all the older and latest comments, I know some of you do, and that's a very big encouragement.

So, like it or not, in the future I will continue to pester innocent readers with an insight into that twisted mind of mine, and into the gigantic, crazy and brilliant place that is Beijing.

Coming soon- Beijing Beauty, part four: Community.

Bis dann

Nadine

Thank you all very much!

The other day, I bought 3 (three) rain ponchos.

Do you think I had the cop-on to bring even one of them into work? Of course, it's been pouring down all day, and though it's quieted down a little now, with my luck the city will be flooded by the time I'm leaving for home. I'm stunned at the regularity with which this happens to me: I also own a whopping 4 (four) umbrellas at this stage. Some of them I even bought while at work; however I don't even need to check to know that every single one of them is now resting in the quiet comfort of my home.

is all I can say here, I'm afraid.

Bis dann

Nadine (who is probably going to rename herself into Nadine Phelps after tonight's way home)

FYI

Here's a picture of the Beijing sky at 7pm today. Just in case your local paper writes anything to the contrary- we've had a lovely blue sky all day, with clouds that were real and not just gray, polluted blobs. I even spent the entire afternoon on the balcony! Must have been due to the heavy rain we've had over the last couple of days.

Of course, we do have badly polluted air here, and most summer days so far have been quite smoggy. I've never seen a sky as gray as in some of the photos in the press though- as with most things about China, this is frequently exaggerated.

And, don't forget- this is the pollution that the West conveniently exported to China and India.

Bis dann,

Nadine

The sky above the building opposite mine

Beijing Beauty, part 3: Hutongs

Whenever you hear or read about Beijing's hutongs in the Western media, you'll be told that the government are taking them down, one by one to replace them with shiny new flats and shopping centres. Well, guess what- they haven't destroyed them all yet. On Saturday night, my crazy friend and I went on an expedition deep into the heart of old Beijing, discovering true Hutong magic.

Some of the oldest Hutongs date back to the BC days and are long and narrow, purpose-built streets, which, with their ... architecture and fragrant trees, really feel like a piece of the olden days right in the middle of this super city. The core of the remaining Hutongs is situated in the east of Beijing, north of the Forbidden City (which, now as then, is the centre of everything), near the lovely Houhai Lake. With much of the Hutongs having been torn down already, their preservation and cultural value has become a key concern of Beijingers (some are even protesting- yes, protesting!), and the old streets have recently received a lot of attention and interest, from locals and tourists alike. The centre of the newly-discovered, hip Hutong area is Nan Rou Gu Xiang, a long street that connects a lot of the smaller alleys and is lined with hundreds of restaurants, bars and small shops that sell everything from handcrafts to art and from clothes to music.

So crazy Ring's and my late night journey took us through half-lit alleys, past hordes of tourists (some of whom are louder than others), into lots of different shops and past an endless amount of corners that had old people sitting outside with their dogs, or playing mahjongg, or having a drink. For, even with the hipping up of the Hutongs, with young designers and artists selling their wares, and with travellers flocking in from all over the world, this is still a place where you can get that feeling of "old China"- of a pure, untouched, un-Westernised culture that has been there for centuries, untouched by any social and political changes of the past decades. The way people sit outside their houses on summer nights, the way they gather to gamble together, and the way they gossip loudly across alleys gives you that warm feeling of finally having found thee real China.

Bis dann,


Nadine

Naturally, my little party camera wasn't the best tool to be capturing the nighttime hutongs with

One of the many funky shops we went into

A group of men playing mahjongg



Red lanterns outside one of the many restaurants on Nan Lou Gu Xiang

Swisssssssssh! Swooooooooooooosh! Kabooooooooooom!

Did you see that opening ceremony?! In the words of the great Borat, "woweewoweewoooooow!" This mad spectacle of multi-coloured fireworks, swinging, twirling and flying people and wild flashes of a thousand colours surpassed even my wildest expectations. (And I had been taking sneaky peeks at leaked rehearsal videos.)

My favourite part was the exactly 2008 percussioners playing on lit-up drums. Or was it the puppet perrformance (with the four puppets all representing generals from the Three Kingdoms period), accompanied by that most famous piece of Beijing Opera, Farewell My Concubine? No, hang on. It was the lit up Olympics rings. Or, wait. The dancers doing calligraphy with their feet on that giant scroll. The equally giant printing press. Lang Lang's performance. The firework footsteps. The 56 dancers in ethnic dress. Li Ning floating his way through the Beijing sky to light the torch. Or maybe it was just Dirk's happy sweatiness. (Or sweaty happiness, whatever you like.)

It was an evening of many highlights, and one that I will not be able to forget for a long time. It was only the German press who couldn't stop in their frantic search for negatives and, frustrated they couldn't find any, resorted to calling the ceremony "propaganda" (because other shows of this kind are never "propaganda" for the host country, wha'?) and comparing the ceremony's director, Zhang Yimou to Leni Riefenstahl (which I have no words for. Absolutely not.)

Far away from such pathetically envious resentment, I celebrated the opening with about twenty colleagues and students -friends- in a local restaurant. Surrounded by a mountain of food, gallons of beer, and the fireworks outside reminding us just how much we are a part of this all, we had a happy, jolly and crazy night. At the end, my eyes still wet with excited emotion, I told my Chinese friends that they could, and should be, extremely proud of this fantastic, beautiful, joyous spectacle, which has finally put their nation on the map for everyone to notice.

What I'm not so proud of, though, was my fall out of the taxi on the way home, which was caused by too many Qingdaos and lead to a massive bruise on my thigh.

Some things never change.

Bis dann,

NadinePromoting Chinese-German friendship (no matter what the press tries to do!)

This is as far as I got- but with fireworks going up all around the neighbourhood I still very much felt a part of it

Beijing Beauty, part 2: Bei Hai Park

An image of Beijing used all to often in Western media is that of the crowded, dirty, smoggy urban jungle with all its restless discomfort. You don't hear or read a lot about any oases of peace, havens of natural beauty, even though they do exist, bang in the middle of Beijing. One of my favourites has to be Bei Hai Park, or Beihai Gongyuan in Chinese. Built around the massive North Lake (Bei Hai), its foundations were laid in the 10th century. Marco Polo himself is said to have been received on a Bei Hai hill by the then ruling Mongol Khan.

Today, Bei Hai is the ideal refuge for a chilled-out afternoon surrounded by trees, wonderfully fragrant flowers and quiet, peaceful water. With a number of small pagodas, plants, smaller structures and lots of nooks and crannies on one side of the lake, a walk around the water (or a boat trip across) will bring you to a steep hill, on top of which sits Bei Hai's most famous attraction: the White Dagoba (Bai Da). (I won't go into any details of what exactly makes an architactural structure a Dagoba, mostly because I don't know. I'm sure Wikipedia has some info though.)

Scattered around the park you can find numeous snack food stands selling barbequed things and yoghurt (in heavy little jars with straws), little shops offering all kinds of souvenirs from Beijing Opera-style hats to Mao caps, and artists performing this and that.

I regret having only made it to Bei Hai once in all my time here. The one day I spent there (with two friends on a day off), I did an incredible amount of walking, climbing and talking (both in English and Chinese, yay!), and though I was exhausted in the evening, I couldn't have had a happier outing. I remember constantly clicking away on my camera, simply because there is so much to see, and because the scenery is too gorgeous not to try and ban it onto, ehm, disk.

My shaky, out-of-focus impressions below don't do it any justice at all, but I hope they can help to re-shape that image of Beijing as that massive, soulless grey hole.

Bis dann,

Nadine

The White Dagoba in the mist

Bejing Beauty

Internet censorship. Detainment of protesters. Bad weather. Darfur. Rabies. God knows what. With only hours to go until the 2008 Summer Olympics, media across the Western world are doing their utmost to find new, negative things to report on the host country, paying no attention to any sports topics, and completely ignoring to the many fascinations the host city has to offer.

I am therefore starting a short eight-part series, Beijing Beauty, each part of which will introduce a different aspect of this gargantuan city and its society. From culinary tempations to neighbourly spirit, I will share my impressions and try to show you all the wonderful things the papers don't want you to know about.

Part One: Food!

What do Beijingers say when they meet in the morning? Ni hao? Wrong. Zaoshang hao? Nope. Ni chu fan le ma - Have you eaten?- is the greeting you hear on your way to work, or early in the office. Though, like How are You in English, a detailed answer such as "Oh, I've been having problems with my digestion and therefore haven't had anything" isn't really asked for, but this practice does show one thing: Chinese people's passion for food. For eating, and gathering over food.

And plenty of food there is indeed. From the street stalls selling Baozi or pineap ple to go to the small, unpretentious restaurants of all sorts - from Beijing BBQ to Sichuan- to fancy, round table, full-service fancy spots to your usual suspects like KFC and Pizza Hut: When you're in Beijing you'll never have to be hungry. From as little as a few cents all the way up to a stately price you can enjoy virtually any cuisine you like. Any by any, I mean any.

German, French, Italian, American, Russian, Korean, Japanese and Thai restaurants are some examples of the many international cuisines Beijing has to offer. But the true culinary wealth lies in the thousands of Chinese restaurant that offer every single style of food that th is huge, diverse country has to offer. With meals affordable enough to eat out every night, you can have Dongbei on Monday, Sichuan on Tuesday, Mongolian Hotpot on Wednesday, and so on.

See the pictures below for some impressions beyond sweet and sour chicken with rice! (Now updated with additional pictures from last night's opening ceremony party)

Is it lunchtime yet?!

Bis dann and Hao yun Beijing!

Nadine

Mongolian Hotpot

Ma Po Doufu

Song Hua Dan - Thousand-Year Old Egg

Baozi - the perfect hangover breakfast!

Liang Ban Bo Cai - cold spinach with vinegar

Chiazi - aubergine with onion and garlic

Kafeh toudu - coffee potatoes!

That was chicken, I think...

Ou - lotus root with cabbage and pepper