SUNDAY 08/17

-As planned, I woke up at 7 with the intention of being on the subway at 8. Succeeded all too well and was at our planned meeting spot at 北土城, leaving me with forty-five minutes to kill.

-To pass the time I first went to find the media entrance to the subway, since it had moved since I was last there and I didn’t want to be late for work. Who should I run into but Ted, an old acquaintance from the days when I went to the youth group at my church. I knew he was in Beijing working for CCTV and we had been in touch on Facebook, but it didn’t make it any less surprising to run into him. He was on his way to see a handball match, so I let him go.

-Having found the media entrance, I went to explore places where Libbie and I could hang out. Directly across the street was a long park with a stream running through the middle. It had started to drizzle when I came upon an old, traditional-style house that I presumed was part of the park. I asked an attendant if I could go in and look around. He consented. Slowly, I walked around an old, moss-covered courtyard, admiring the ornate woodwork, the detailed painting, the tranquility of the rain falling on the stone. I sat down beneath an overhang and smiled at the beauty of it all. “How picturesque and Chinese!” I thought. “This will make the perfect place for Libbie and I to sit and catch up. And look, more quaint still, here comes the attendant with a caged bird!” The attendant took the birdcage and hung it on a hook behind me. Not five seconds later, the tranquility of the courtyard was obliterated by the loudest, sharpest and most shearing sound I have ever had the misfortune of hearing. I practically leapt out of my skin twisting around to see where the noise had come from, to quickly realize that it was the bird. It squawked again. The noise was intolerable. Another thirty seconds of trying to endure the noise and I was on my way out.

-Libbie and I finally did meet, after a miscommunication about which subway exit we were meeting at, exacerbated by the fact that all the nearby roads were closed for the women’s marathon. We walked back and forth through the park and talked.

-At 10:30 I headed back to the IBC for work at 11. Libbie really wanted to see where I worked. Much to my surprise we were able to hustle her through the media entrance without any sort of identification by pretending she was my cousin. We tried the same trick again at the IBC with less success. I was cutting it close with work, so we parted ways and Libbie went to explore the Green a bit before going home.

-Today was our medal-heaviest day: 35 gold medals were being awarded. I saw, for the first of what would be many times, Bela Karolyi, hanging out with one of our gymnastics researchers.

-After work I bolted to the Water Cube to see rounds 3.5 through 5 women’s 3m springboard diving. This time I put my camera away and enjoyed it as a sporting event.

Again, Guo Jingjing won. Supposedly we were witness to her career final dive—she announced plans to retire after this Olympics—but we’ll see if they let her quit. Both she and Wu Minxia take respectful bows to the spectators after each dive. I stuck around to watch my first medal ceremony. China took gold and bronze, Russia took silver.