Los Angeles filmmaker and UCLA alumnus Aleem Hossain landed in Beijing on Sunday and was impressed by the airport's new international terminal. "Really cool," he posted at his blog. "But the highlight, by far, was Detective Dog!" The dogs are present on posters and patrolling the terminal, sniffing at bags and travelers. Then today, Aleem attended his first event: synchronized diving.

 

He posts:

 

"I have to admit, during the year and a half of planning I didn’t spend much time thinking about how cool it would be to actually be here. All of the cheesy stuff you hear Bob Costas say about the Olympics is true! There really was national pride, international understanding, and amazing competition. Synchronized diving is a great sport. As someone who is pretty bad at understanding the finer points of what makes a dive good or bad, this was the diving event for me – because it’s pretty clear whether or not the two divers are in sync. I’ve posted a video of one of the dives at the bottom of this post. 10 meters is a lot higher than it sounds!

"The best fans in the whole house were the Mexicans– they had mulit-part cheers, noise makers, and a lot of enthusiasm. And when Mexican team won the bronze they went crazy. But afterwards, in true Olympic spirit, they gathered together the Brazilian, Argentinian, and Chinese fans around them for a group photo op, during which the Mexicans invented cheers for the Brazillians and the Argentines and adopted the common Chinese cheer of 'Jia You!' (translation: 'Add Gas!'). The Chinese won the gold – and it was clear even to a nube like me that they were an order of magnitude better than all of the other divers."

 

Photos galore at Aleem in China.