The Day the Games Opened!

Yesterday was 8.8.08 which means it was the Olympic Opening Ceremony for the Beijing 2008 Summer Games. It was awesome!

I met some of my Chinese volunteer friends at Tian' Anmen at 8:30 a.m. to kick off our day. The square was closed (as much of Beijing was) so we walked around and they took me to Qian' Men Avenue. It's an old avenue that looks like how it did back in the days of the Emperor but full of shops and stores. It was actually really cool. We then had lunch at a little restaurant and ate Beijing Noodels, which were pretty good.

After our morning hanging out around Tian' Anmen we went to the Temple of Heaven. It was diffrent than I thought it would be, I didn't think the actually land area around it would be so big. The Temple of Heaven was beautiful, along with the park area around it and all the other buildings. We walked around and took lots of pictures for a few hours, then we headed to KFC where we got lunch and rested for a while.

After lunch we headed to watch the opening ceremony at their university in an auditorium. It was really cool to watch with a huge group of Chinese students. They were all so excited and it was such an exciting time. We choose to watch it there becuase we would actually have seats and if we went somewhere in the city to watch it on a big screen it would have been SO crowded. There were so many people you have NO idea. Thousands and thousands plus some! So I was happy with my little community of Chinese students and my seat, haha. I am so excited for Beijing and China to host these games and to showcase their awesome culture and long history.

Also, the ceremony was AMAZING! It was so cool! I have no idea how they did all that stuff! When it was over we could hear all the fireworks when we were walking outside. It took us forever to find a taxi to the subway station! We walked forever but finally found one after 45 minutes. Once we got to the train station though it was smooth sailing, not busy or anything which was a suprise. 8.8.08. WAS A GREAT DAY!!!!!