Taekwondo

Today Tom, Jed and I went to see Taekwondo. The matches started at 9:00 but due to the rain we didn't arrive in the stadium until 10:00, in time to see the USA take on Thailand. Xiao Shang, our driver, dropped us off at the spectator's entrance. We did not realize we'd be walking about a mile to the stadium once we entered the venue area. It was not at all well marked, so we had to wander and make our way on our own, in a torrential downpour. We arrived, soaked, and found our seats were occupied by a group of Chinese. We had four tickets but neither Jack nor Huck wanted to attend, so we took the three seats on the end of the row and a Chinese guy remained in one of our seats. We kept our mouths shut and let him stay in our seat. We watched again and again as many people arrived late to find Chinese people in their seats.

The first 4 matches were women, followed by the men. Tom, being a typical male, made chauvinistic remarks about the women fighting and was eager to see the difference in the men's competition. I was so pleased to see that one could not differentiate between the two. The men competed exactly like the women. In the helmets, from where we sat, (not too far away) we could not even see a difference. Even the yells sounded similar. I definitely felt vindicated.

The American woman beat the Thai woman 2-0. Next, Malaysia and Turkey fought it out, Turkey made easy work of the Malaysian. Finally, we watched Israel v. Croatia where Croatia beat Israel in the last few seconds of the 3 round match.

Niger failed to show up, giving a quick win to opponent Brazil.

The men's competition followed. We watched Peru best Australia. We were confused by the fact that a group of enthusiastic Americans were cheering loudly for the Peruvian until I looked it up on the internet and discovered that Peruvian, Peter Lopez was actually born in Irvine, CA!

We were ready to leave after 2 hours. Jed was a trouper as we trudged through puddles to exit the venue. We called Xiao Shang and asked him to meet us at the East gate, rather than the West gate where he had dropped us. This change gave us only a half mile walk but the route was totally unmarked, so we had to frequently ask passers-by if we were going in the right direction. It is funny to see people pause, stunned, momentarily, hearing someone who looks like Tom or me asking if we are going the right way, speaking in their language. One older man even offered to share his umbrella with me. I was already soaked, so I said Mei shi, it's not a problem, and we continued on our way. Jed said they should have marked the way a bit better, maybe with a yellow brick road or something. I'd have to agree!

Finally, on the way home, we stopped by workers' stadium at the USA House. We bought Jack a hat and we bought some paralympic pins. I found a beautiful Ralph Lauren women's shirt. It says Beijing in characters down one side and has the pony on the other and it comes in a few bright colors but when I saw the price was $150 US, I passed. I got a USA team jacket that is great. It has a dragon on the back making it clearly a Beijing Olympics souvenir. Someday the boys will be big enough to wear it, which will be fun for them. It's hard not to get carried away. The mood here is electric.

Tomorrow we will go see Modern Pentathlon. We have tickets for 8:30 and 5:00. I told Tom to take a friend to the morning competition as I've seen enough fencing and don't care to see shooting. In the afternoon, we'll watch the running and horse riding competitions together and be home to light the candles and have family dinner. Xing Ayi will come after lunch and stay to babysit. Chef Bai is cooking dinner: chicken breasts, home made macaroni and cheese, carrots and cucumbers and Challah and I will bake dessert with the boys in the morning.