Kleven, who also worked the summer games in Torino, Italy, takes care of her clients’ tourism, security, lodging, entertainment and transportation needs. While she anticipates working about 16 hours each day she’s there, Kleven agreed to share with the Journal, photos and periodic e-mail updates as she finds time to send them.
Check here for new updates and the attached photo gallery for new pictures.
Aug. 10-13
Beijing is steamy hot!Yesterday my team and I headed to the main Olympic venues. It was the clearest day that I have experienced here on my trip. Although this may sound great compared to the smog filled sky we all have seen on TV, I can’t describe how humid and hot it is. We did get a much better view of the Olympic venues.
The Olympic green is the 1.5-mile by 1.5-mile area that you see on TV when watching the Olympics. This area hosts such venues as the National Stadium (The Birds Nest), Indoor National Stadium, Water Cube, IBC (International Broadcasting Center), and the Today show. Our goal this week is to scope out the venues and find the ins and outs of each of them before our guests arrive. This may seem easy to one, but once you see these massive architectural complexes you realize that just scoping out one venue takes about two-three hours. We have the credentials to literally get us into all the venues that no one else can unless you are security, employee, or there is an event and you have a ticket for that specific event. We (my team of six lovely gals) are all assigned a specific venue that we are in charge of once our guests arrive.
The first venue visited was The Birds Nest. WOW! So crazy to see in person. It is amazing! So far the only thing that has occurred there is the opening ceremonies. Since then they are getting the track scrubbed up and ready to go for track and field. They were also installing the grass! This venue seats up to 91,000 people. It is mainly used for track and field, men’s final soccer, and opening and closing ceremonies.
The second venue we investigated was the Water cube. We entered the building just after an event, so it was very busy. This is also a very interesting building both from the inside and outside. Blue looking from the outside, and clear looking from the inside out. We snuck in and peaked at our seat assignments for our up and coming events. Two gigantic pools, one the lap pool, the other is the diving pool. There is also a warm up/ practice pool on the other side of the cube. Unfortunately no one was competing, but the warm-up pool was busy, and the divers were diving in every direction. It was neat seeing all the countries share the boards during this time.
We moved then to the Indoor National Stadium, which is next to the Water cube. This is where we got to watch the men’s gymnastics competition. It was packed with fans from all over the world. It just so happened that USA was competing on the even bars. It is a surreal experience when you are sitting in a stadium like this and everyone around you is from a different country. I heard the family behind me speaking French, and the Chinese spectators were right to my left. I found myself not only excited for the USA, but cheering whenever any of the other competitors landed a good score. Everyone gets excited to see an awesome routine even when it isn’t your homeland. We watched for a while and then had to keep moving.
After the venues we walked to the end of the Olympic green to the Olympic super store. This is a sight for anyone to see! The line to get in was crazy, almost out the main door. We waited for about 20 minutes to get in and do a little shopping. As you may or may not know, there are five Beijing Olympic mascots. They are a total hit here at the games. Each has their own name and character, and when you put them together their names spell out ‘Welcome to Beijing’ in Mandarin. Unlike the Torino games where there were two, these little guys are flying off the shelves. From hats to pins, to cell phone charms.
The store was full of Chinese volunteers. They have to be the nicest people on earth! I have never seen so many smiling faces anywhere. Any time you approach them or walk by, they never miss an opportunity to ask you if you need help or if they can direct you somewhere. They are EVERYWHERE. The whole Olympic green is lined with volunteers anxiously awaiting the next tourist to help out, especially to practice the English language. It is obvious that they are so thrilled to have visitors in their country let alone the Olympics.
After we returned from the Olympic green, we were off to the Wukesong Stadium where the men’s basketball was taking place. USA dominated again, but I didn’t watch much. Instead, it was our duty to taste test the concession food items. YIKES... The menu consists of about 10 items including hot dogs, which is a pinkish form of meat shaped like a hot dog and thrown right on to a skewer stick. I must admit I didn’t try it. The most interesting menu item is called ‘President Snack Noodles.’ This was funnier than anything, because we had no idea what it was, but we were going to try it anyway. I found in my hand a packet of Ramen noodles....(literally) I asked how to eat them and our guide demonstrated by breaking the square of noodles into small pieces while it was still in the Chinese packaging, then opened the bag, she searched with her fingers to find the flavoring package, which looks identical to ours, tore it open and emptied the whole thing into the bag and shook up the pieces with powder flavoring and presto! That was it. We all got a kick out of it and actually enjoyed eating the Presidents snack noodles and laughed because we all had lived off of them years ago in college and here we were in Beijing eating them again, but this time raw. Other items that are on the menu: Egg, bread, biscuits and chips. The egg we still don’t know how it looks but I’m sure we will find out. The bread is a mini loaf of something like fruit cake, the biscuits are literally a small roll of Ritz crackers, and the chips are Pringle looking chips that are ketchup flavored. Funny stuff on that menu, but I tell you the spectators are eating it all up!
The security is VERY good. When entering in to the Olympic grounds everyone must either have a credential or a ticket for that day to an event. It is very similar to the airport security process. If you have a camera, you might have to take a picture to prove that it is a camera and when women have lipstick they might get asked to put it on right there on the spot. Nothing is passed through without questioning. We all feel very safe. Today we had a 3.5-hour security meeting with our security leaders as well as our local security officials. After the sad tragedy on the first day of the Olympics with Mr. Bachmann, our local security head told us how terrible the Chinese government feels about letting us down. They take so much pride in doing such a good job protecting not only their country but us visitors as well. Everything has been re-evaluated, and they are taking even more action to make sure nothing like this happens again. At the tourist sites you can look up and see security onlookers from atop the buildings, and they also have many policemen undercover as well. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!
Well, tomorrow is a long day to come, as we are taking a look at other venues. I will keep you posted as time permits.
Aug. 9
I was so thankful for a nice shower. The water was hot and the pressure was super – not usually expected when I travel to Europe. On my way to work today I finally got to see what is known as a pea soup day. We were on the freeway and it looked as though we were heading into a gray fog. But really it was the heart of Beijing full of buildings. The streets are lined with Olympic banners and there is an Olympic car-pool lane, which I found interesting. The lane is marked with an Olympic symbol (the colored rings). We were told that if a car unmarked with permission to use this lane will get about a $350 ticket. Lucky for us we got to use this lane. Traffic wasn’t bad, and every which way you looked are security officers and policemen. Policemen are almost every 20 feet on the streets in the city, and the security officers are standing on guard at all of the embassy entrances. They are standing at attention without movement straight as an arrow and looking really sharp with their white gloves and uniforms. I am working out of the St. Regis hotel, which is surrounded by all of the different embassies. This is also the NBC headquarters hotel, so many of my coworkers have spotted Tom Brokaw walking around the hotel. There is a lot of action here. I feel at home because it is mostly Americans here.
After work and dinner at about 9 p.m,. our cab driver took us back to our hotel which is only a five-minute walk from Tiananmen Square, which represents the heart of Beijing and China itself. It contains the Monument to the People’s Heroes, the Mao Zedong Mausoleum, the Great Hall of the People, the Museum of Chinese History, and the Museum of the Chinese Revolution. And just across the road from that is the Forbidden City. It is now named the Palace Museum, and this world’s largest palace complex covers 170 acres of land, includes 8,706 rooms, and exemplifies the country’s best-preserved classical Chinese architecture.
I took pictures of the Forbidden City last night from the outside. I can’t wait to visit during the day.... Will keep you all posted.... Hopefully going to the gymnastics event tomorrow.
Aug.7-8
After 24 long hours up and down on planes, and in and out of airports, I have made it here to Beijing! To my surprise, in Minneapolis before I left town, I realized that my flight schedule had changed. I was now looking forward to a four-and-a-half-hour layover in Tokyo as opposed to my original one-hour layover. I learned soon after that Beijing was closing their airport on the evening of the 8th because of the opening ceremonies. They were not allowing any airplanes to land or take off for about a four-hour period. Opening ceremonies started at 8p.m. my flight was supposed to land at 9:30 p.m. In the end, we landed in Beijing at 1 a.m. this morning(Saturday). Kind of ironic to leave the states on the 7th, and get here the 9th. I never even had an 8th of August.
It was a foggy and damp evening or shall I say morning when I stared out the airplane window. The airport was nice and quiet because they hadn’t had flights come in for several hours. Stepping off the plane was a bit of a shocker! Very sticky and hot. I proceeded to customs and got through just fine. My bags made it! Thank goodness. We saw several Olympians from Kazakstan. It was interesting to see the differences already in the different cultures. My co-worker Eric and I got in what we thought was the line to exit the baggage-claim area, and it soon turned into mass chaos. Simple things like waiting in line was not even considered. These people came hoarding to get through the last door to exit the baggage area. Our guide waited patiently outside of customs and showed us to the van. My eyes were so tired but I kept them open in hopes of seeing something new and exciting. By this time, it was about 3 a.m. so it was quiet. I hit the hay at about 3:45 a.m. and slept like a baby on my little bed that is as soft as a brick!
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