Six-thousand hits!

Six-thousand hits?
Who would’ve thought that when we started this blog just three weeks ago that we’d get over 6,000 hits?
By all accounts, it’s been a popular thing on both ends. We enjoyed sharing our experiences. We watched the counter number grow and hoped that folks enjoyed reading our posts and personal blogs.
I’ve been trying to [...]

Chros McDougall: A mystery storm

Well that was weird.
It was 4 a.m., two hours after I fell asleep, when a relentless thunderstorm woke me up last night. We keep the curtain closed so we’re not blinded in the morning, but the light was still getting through. This wasn’t normal thunder — it was more like a boulder rolling down a [...]

Pin trading, revisited

It didn’t take long till Larry and Shawna had the act down.
Shawna Xu, a Chinese student at Renmin University who’s been acting as our guide/translator during our stay in Beijing would act like she was trying to get Larry Powell to trade some of his pins – Olympic pins and Missouri Centennial pins.
They’d flail [...]

Trinity Nelson: The torch relay

Is our stay coming to an end?

Our China trip must be coming to an end.
The Olympics end with Sunday night’s closing ceremonies. We have a farewell dinner with our Remnin hosts on Monday. And then, most of us head back to Missouri on Thursday.
Seven students will stay on to volunteer for the Paralympic Games, which begin in Beijing immediately after the [...]

Sarah Orscheln: Beijing photos

Chros McDougall: Gymnast-mania

Access was opened up considerably for volunteers today.
Thus, Beatlemania. Or in the case of China, Gymnast-mania.
I’ve written a lot about the Chinese infatuation with their athletes. The 12 particular gymnasts representing China in the Olympics won seven medals this year, five of them gold, including both team titles. It’s fair to say that the gymnasts [...]

Alex Monnig: Cheering China

The Chinese are putting their home-court/field/country advantage to good use.
The constant raucous support of Chinese athletes during these Olympics is different from the support we often see at home in the United States. I’ve written before that the US has traveled well at these Games, providing audible support for athletes in several venues. But the [...]

Askren’s day at the Olympics

I was attending a Chinese acrobat show Tuesday night when I got a text message from Doug Meigs.
“I have two tickets for tomorrow’s wrestling at face value, 100 RMB. You interested?”
I was very interested.

The story Larry Powell doesn’t want you to read

Larry explained his situation to the Chinese volunteer.
The volunteer smiled. Was it one of those, “Yeah, whatever pal” smiles or was it an “Everything’s going to be
all right” smile?
Turns out, it was just a smile.
“Please, wait one moment,” the volunteer said, then spoke Chinese into his headset.
So, we waited.
But that’s getting ahead of the story.
Monday [...]