Wine in Beijing? Absolutely.

So, while our other photographer Andy Mills and reporter Kevin Manahan treked out to Qinhuangdao for the US women’s soccer match, which was a 5 hour bus ride, each way, Politi and I had a little less on our plates. I spent the day tearing apart the schedule, trying to plan our coverage, then checked out the swimming/diving venue. After that, we were able to hit the Kodak/Nikon party. Who woulda thunk you could get a great glass of wine in China? Politi and I were relaxing on shiny orange leather couches with some of the best (free) wine I’ve had in a long time. We do both feel guilty. Especially since when they finally got back to Beijing, there were no busses to get them to the hotel! I can’t imagine they are going to excited to see the photo above. I heard they were getting back to the hotel as we were waking up.

One thing I’ve noticed, there are paramilitary everywhere. They stand at attention all day long. They are spaced along the outer perimeter of the fencing outside the venues. As if the fence was not enough to hold someone back.  The guy above, he was guarding nothing.

Day 4, finally made it to a venue.

Wow, been here four days already. Feels like I’ve been here a month. We finally made it over to the aquatic center. They have an underwater window in the pool, so I shot a few frames of some synchronized swimming practice. The water cube is a kick ass building. We unfortunately got to see the outside last night, when our cab driver dropped us off 2 miles from the Main Press Center. Traffic was just brutal. Our cabbie spoke no english, we speak no chinese, so despite the taxi card I had, which had the address written in chinese, he got lost. We should have known better when he looked at the taxi card for the 10th time. He kept turning it sideways and upside down. Steve was trying to communicate with him. He thought if he spoke slower and louder, that somehow our driver would suddenly understand english. We had to walk back. It was about 8:00, so it was dark, but it was still probably 85 degrees. As if climbing the Great Wall wasn’t enough exercise in the morning, we got another workout in.

We were coming back from shooting a video of Politi at the DongHuaMen Night Market, where he consumed some snake, fried silk worms and a fried cicada. I tried the snake, which could have been worse. But it was pretty strange, and I could have done without. Check out the video. I think he’s still tasting the cicada.

And if you haven’t seen Andy’s video of our trip to the wall, check it out.

Charlie Wenzelburg of the NY Post shot this cool photo of me near that window in the pool. He shot it with the Nikon D3 to show me how amazing the low light quality is. Let me tell you, it was dark in there. The detail in this photo is just mind blowing.