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RHIAN'S SOCCER JOURNALS:

VILLAGE LIFE AND J-PODS 1st August 2008

Olympic month has officially begun. The team was allowed to sleep in a little this morning, and we would have slept even longer if the cleaning lady had understood slightly more English than she did. I am not sure what she thought I was yelling back at her when she knocked on the door, but I guess it was sounded slightly like an invitation to come into the room. She seemed somewhat shocked to find D and I barely awake in the darkness of our rooms.

Obviously she was shocked at our slothful ways staying so late in bed, and as punishment for shocking her, we have not seen her for the rest of the day. Consequently, we have had to make an expedition to find some toilet paper. This is the only thing so far that appears to be in limited supply here in the village.

Being here in the Beijing Olympic Games athletes' village is a bit like being in a dream. Everything here is designed to cater to your every need. It is a way of life that could be easy to get used to, but such attention is rather foreign to so many of us here. For most of the year, athletes usually struggle to make ends meet and we have had fight for every article of clothing we wear and to make sure it fits. Here, people are generous and things are just given to us.

As another example, last night we were just walking around the village and stumbled across a huge concert stage with an amazing orchestra playing. It was raining lightly, and there was scarcely a person in the crowd watching, yet here were these amazing singers and musicians out on the stage. We sat and watched for about 15 minutes and then a monsoon like rain began to fall. We tried to wait it out for a bit, but the deluge took way too long and we decided to make a dash for it. At first Kara, D., Robyn, Amy and I tried to run from cover to cover, but there was so much rain that we soon gave up and just enjoyed the adventure of running around soaking wet in the Olympic village.

For most of this morning we packed our bags. We can leave one big bag in the village when we leave for Tianjin in the morning, so this is huge news. We depart the athletes village some time in the morning on Saturday and we will go by train to where we will be spending the next week and a bit for our first two games. The trip should not take too long as we are going to travel on some crazy "bullet" train. I think we have estimated the trip at about 2 hours. We will have our first training session once we arrive, and I am looking forward to getting back to work after two days away from the field.

This afternoon Robyn, Amy, D and I went by metro to the silk market. We came to this same market when we were here last year.. or was that earlier this year? Things have drastically changed. There were many more people in the market who spoke English and the place was way, way cleaner. There were tourists from everywhere in the world, and many of the surrounding businesses had been cleaned up and given English-sounding names e.g.” Maggies” or “Bill's.” We also noticed that all the beggars seem to have disappeared. However, to be fair, I think this is common practice whenever a major event is being staged anywhere in the world. Beggars are encouraged to leave tourist areas, but I have never witnessed this first hand.

The only thing that remained the same were the pushy barrow-boy stall-sellers. They still scare me. But, this is only because I know that I am going to get screwed, as bargainer I am not. However, I did end up buying a new i-Pod for $ 28, but the “i” on the pod looks much like a “j” and my j-pod might be a little closer to what it is I actually purchased. The thing works though, and I have bought many more useless things for 28 dollars in my past. So, I am content with it.

I am heading to bed now, as tomorrow will be another long day, but this time I hope I am traveling with the team!