Being a fan and tourist in Beijing

Hello to anyone that may be looking in on this blog! Yesterday we figured out how our transportation works and then headed over to the Olympic Green in the early evening. First stop was the "Cube" for swimming, where we watched around 8 races, several that featured US swimmers. The USA won Gold in every race that they swam in, set new world records, and in 1 race they won both Gold & Silver. It was nice to here the good old US National anthem so many times.... The Cube is a beautiful venue, and the light show that takes place on the outside is impressive. I had camera problems yesterday, so no photos to share until I can get some from Brad. From swimming we strolled across the street to the National Stadium for a little W/C basketball. This is where gymnastics took place during the Olympics.. It's a huge arena, and the place had a good size crowd for the game we saw at 9PM featuring #1 seed Canada vs. #9 (?) seed Germany. This was both teams first game of the Paralympics, and you could see they were struggling to find their rhythm. Germany had an awesome defense that almost let them upset Canada, but in the end the cannucks won by 3, but just barely... In related news, both the US men and women's BB teams won their first games on day 1. So it's Monday evening here as I write this. Today we played tourists and went to the Forbidden City and competed in our own little hill climbing competition. This is an amazing place that is over 600 years old, so w/c access is not great. From the outside it looks big, but until you get in and start moving from the south end to the north, you have no idea what a huge piece of real estate this place covers. I took lots of pictures, but rather than post them here I've uploaded them to Picasa for your viewing pleasure (see link at bottom of this post). As you look at them you will see lots of pictures that look like I got carried away with shooting ramps going up and down, but I think there were 8 of these monsters that we had to traverse from 1 end to the other... thank god Brads girlfriend Kay was there to help us old guys along, otherwise we wouldn't had got far. As you look at the pictures, towards the end you'll see a contraption they use to get wheelchairs up to the highest point in the city... This was the scariest fricken thing that I've ever been on, but it was well worth the thrill to see the 3 buildings that housed Emperors reception room, his "nap" room, and giant throne. W/C access into these buildings (like most others there) is not possible, but I'm told they were pretty cool. I did get someone to snap a few shots in the throne room, which you'll see in my pics. At the very north end of the Forbidden City are the Emperors beautiful gardens, but we didn't get to see much of them as everything was closing up by the time we made it that far. From one side of the city to the other it took us 4 plus hours of pushing, but it was well worth it!!! Okay, I'm getting blogged out here... I'm a slow one finger typist who's had enough writing for now. Thursday we are off for more hills, this time at the Great Wall. Not sure what tomorrow or Wednesday will bring yet, but I'm sure it will be fun!! On Friday, Wheelchair Rugby starts up and I'm excited for that to begin. Of the 8 countries that are competing, I think that 6 teams have a legitimate chance of playing for Gold. At this elite level anything can happen, but you can probably figure out who I'm betting on to take it all... So here's the link to my pictures. Until next time, please enjoy! John