On Saturday I took Shira and Danny to check Wang Fu Jing. It's the touristy shopping area very close to Tiananmen Square. It’s a pedestrian shopping area. Put into LA terms for you, it’s like Third Street Promenade but bigger and busier.

 

Shira asked me if Wang Fu Jing is like Fisherman's Wharf to me (as in being an uber-touristy spot) — somewhere that I only go with friends in town. But I do go to Wang Fu Jing from time to time. It’s fun to show people around the sites and see their reactions to new things.

 

Wang Fu Jing is always busy and crowded on weekends. I couldn't say that it was even busier because of the Olympics. The obvious difference is that there was probably more foreign visitors but probably same amount of people.

 

We wandered around the food stalls. Everything you can imagine, served on a stick. Besides the boring stuff like beef, chicken, pork, mutton, you can get scorpion, chicken heart, star fish, sea horse, silk worm sea snake, and sea dog. There was also corn on the cob on a stick, fresh coconut and glazed fruit on a stick. It’s like walking around the county fair…with all the food vendors yelling to sell their food.

 

I had never heard of sea dog. I saw a girl eating it and asked her what it was. She told me "sea dog" in English so it's not like it got in translation.

 

I asked her how she liked it. She said there wasn't much taste. She didn’t have an awful reaction as she bit into the sea dog. I watched her chew and swallow. I thought, if she can eat it, so can I. Danny dared me and offered to buy it for me. I’ve had silk worm and scorpion a few years ago so I do have a track record for being an adventurous eater!

 

So, you're wondering how I like the sea horse and sea dog. Just crunchy. When you deep fry anything, you can eat it and it tastes fine. Just ask people who live in the South. I ate the head and tail of the sea dog. It wasn't like potato chip-crunchy, more like glazed caramel crunchy but not sweet, of course.

 

All in all, it was a great afternoon showing Wang Fu Jing to Shira and Danny. They really enjoyed themselves and I was happy to show them around and have them try different foods. It was a very cultural experience indeed and that's what traveling is all about.

Last night was a great emotional boost! We beat New Zealand 4-0 and with Japan crushing Norway 5-1, we advanced in first place from our group.

 

The game started in dramatic style as Heather O'Reilly scored with a 30yd blast in the first minute of the game. The early goal definitely relaxed us and we put together our best game thus far.

 

After finding out the Norway - Japan score we were pretty excited to be heading to Shanghai for the quarterfinals.

 

This morning we boarded a small plane for a two hour flight. We travel with 60 pieces of team gear so most of our luggage gets shipped the night before. Our police escort and support personnel make getting around super efficient - they literally shut down the airport and freeways when we travel!

 

Our next opponent will be Canada. UCLA's Kara Lang is a striker for the Canucks and has had a big role in helping her team advance. Although losing to Sweden yesterday, Canada's earlier results against Argentina and China have helped them move on to the quarters. It will be great to see Kara and I am sure amid all the preparation, Lauren, Kara, and I will find some Bruin time!

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.

I played basketball with some of the Chinese athletes that are living at the training center where the American throwers practice while here in Dalian. I was sitting on the bus waiting for everyone else to finish up their workouts, and there was a group of four girls shooting baskets. One of my other teammates got off the bus too and went to play with them.

 

We played this game where we divided the group into two teams, and you had to make a basket from every spot around the key. Every person on the team got a turn, and their turn lasted until they missed, and each team's turn lasted until each member of the team shot the ball. The goal was to be the first team to make it around the key and make 3 three-point shots. I needed a couple of shots to warm up, which they didn't allow me to have. It was okay, though, because after my first two turns, I was money (all the basketball players out there know what I mean). After each shot I hit, the boys that were watching were pretty into the game, and a crowd started to gather. Even our security, who I hadn't seen show any sort of emotion, were into the game - maybe because my team was down and they thought that we were going to lose, but it didn't end up that way.

 

My time here in Dalian is coming to an end, and I am very excited. Not that I haven't had fun here in Dalian, but I am ready to head back to Beijing. I have had fun here interacting with all the people that I have met here. The Team USA staff has been great, the other athletes here are fun to be around, and our interpreters have been really great. Training has been picking up, and I feel pretty good about where I am at the moment and am looking forward to what is to come in Beijing.

We defeated Japan 1-0 to earn valuable points in our group. Norway leads the group with six and they are through to the next round. We will play New Zealand in our next game and need to win or tie to advance.

 

It was an emotional win but more importantly how we played will give us confidence for the next game. We created a lot of chances and kept good possession at times against a very talented Japanese team. There was a pretty good crowd on hand and occasionally we could hear chants of “USA, USA!”

 

After the game, the players looked like they had been in a swimming pool – the humidity was close to 90% and our medical staff were urging the players to take on fluids.

 

Today we boarded a train for Shenyang. Not quite sure why we have to move around in our opening round but every team is in the same predicament. Ironically, New Zealand was on the same train in the same car so we had a two hour ride sitting opposite our next opponent.

 

It was a pretty ride through the Chinese countryside. It was mostly flat, green, rice fields with some hills off in the distance. Most of the players and staff slept or listened to their ever-handy i-pods.

 

Shenyang is a much bigger city and our hotel is in downtown on a “Vegas like” strip. Our hotel is appropriately named the Marvalot! It is huge and very luxurious.

 

The Brazilian men’s team is staying here and some of the players got to meet Ronaldhino – one of the biggest names in men’s soccer. We settled in and will start tomorrow to gear up for New Zealand.

 

My friend Shira arrived on Monday night. Danny and I took the new Airport Express to pick her up. The three of us used to work together at the UCLA Athletic Department. I meant to make a UCLA sign and hold that in the Meet-and-Greet area. Shira was pleasantly surprised to see Danny!!!! It was a UCLA reunion.

 

On Tuesday night, I wanted to show them Beijing. Of course I went to the ultimate tourist spot, Tiananmen Square!!! I was surprised it was still open to the public after 9:00pm. Last time I was there, it closed at 8:00pm. The square is fully decorated with floral displays. They are the size and the scale of Rose Parade floats but not on wheels.

 

People say they wanted to decorate Tiananmen Square so it wouldn't look anything like it normally does. They don't want people (international TV audience) to have the same image of what happened there nearly 20 years ago. Now Tiananmen Square looks like Disneyland mixed with the Rose Parade. All the lights and all the flowers.

 

The Chinese are oozing with national pride. People are waving flags. They are wearing “I (heart) China” tshirts. I think the Chinese are normally subdued when it comes to national pride so this type of display of nationalism is very new for them.

 

The display of national pride all started after the May 12^th earthquake when the whole country rallied around in support of the quake victims. 5/12 resonates with the Chinese as 9/11 resonates with Americans.

 

We were checking out the Countdown Clock at the National Museum when Danny was approached by a cameraman and reporter. They were from a small station in Sichuan Province. The reporter asked me to translate and ask Danny what are his thoughts of Beijing and the atmosphere of the evening. They wanted a foreigner’s perspective. Actually, I wasn't entirely sure of the question but got the gist of what he was saying. Danny responded in English.

 

Danny is used to setting up interviews for UCLA athletes so it was kinda nice to see him on the other side of the microphone for a change. He handled himself very well. Then it gets tricky. The reporter asked me to translate in Chinese what Danny said. And I had to do it on camera!!!! Speaking into a microphone in English is nerve wracking as it is, let alone to have done it in Chinese. I really struggled. I probably sounded like a total idiot. My Chinese vocabulary doesn’t include “national pride” and “proud”.

 

I embrace the role of playing tour guide. Danny and Shira were very glad to see Tiananmen Square. They will be so busy during the Games so they're not sure when they would have the time to visit Tiananmen Square again.

 

It was fun to see Beijing through their fresh eyes. They noticed the people spitting, the crazy manner in which cabbies weave through crowds of pedestrians, the kids with the split bottom pants, the big belly men pulling up their shirts to reveal their belly. All these things were my first impressions of Beijing. Now everything is just normal to me. I’ve come a long way from a year ago.

I arrived in Beijing late yesterday afternoon and travelled with the main Singapore contingent. We were privileged enough to be passengers on the Airbus A380's maiden voyage from Singapore to Beijing. For those that don't know what that means, the A380 is the latest commercial plane that is out at the moment. It features a double-decker, which means more cabin room, etc. The Singapore Airline's economy-class seats feature larger LCD screens in each seatback, as well as an AC power supply in most seats, composite video, USB and ethernet connectivity. I was definitely impressed, and SQ always has the best movie selections for you to choose from! I usually catch up on my movies when I fly home!

 

In the business class, the seats are 34-inches wide and can lie flat for sleeping! Unfortunately, I was in economy class, but it was still a rather pleasant plane ride. I was told that the plane engines were 50% quieter than normal planes, and that is supposed to reduce the fatigue that travelers experience. I don't know if I noticed a difference, but I was also too engrossed in my movies to notice anything else. =)

 

Arriving in Beijing, I was expecting customs and processing to take awhile, but the total time from disembarking the plane to arriving at the village took only 2 hours! The air quality was not as bad as I expected, but even if it was bad, I can't control that, and I am choosing to not focus on things that I cannot control and focus on the things I can, like my preparations.

 

The building that the Singapore contingent is housed in is shared with the Hong Kong contingent and part of the Australian team. My room is spacious, and my roommate and I lucked out, and we have our own private bathroom in our room, which means not having to share a bathroom with anyone else!!!

 

I haven't had a chance to check out the rest of the village, but I've liked everything that I've seen so far!

I have finally made it through team processing here in San Jose. I had no idea what to expect except for a long day and that was exactly what it was. The most memorable part of the team processing experience for me hands down was shopping from station to station for my Olympic Team clothing while pushing a grocery cart around a big meeting room.

 

I like to shop and I thought it was so much fun. There was so much clothing that I got, I actually wished that I didn't bring so many clothes. This really didn't matter much because we got to ship home all of the extra stuff that we didn't need.

 

Although today was a long day, I enjoyed every minute of it. Ring sizing, the meetings, getting my clothes altered, taking pictures, and having the media follow you around. This is something that I will remember forever and be able to tell my children and grandchildren about one day.

 

If this had been any other day and I knew that I had all those things to do, I probably would have not been at all excited and might have put some things off until a later time, but this time its different...I can't wait to get to China.

Aleem Hossain received his MFA in film directing from UCLA in 2004. His current projects include It Ends Today, an upcoming sci-fi drama web-series, "The Suffering", a low-budget horror film, and "Grande Larceny," a comedy feature film he co-wrote featuring Cedric the Entertainer.

 

He's blogging his trip to China for the Olympics and in his first post writes, "I love China, it’s one of my favorite places on earth to visit (amazing food, really friendly people, cool modern architecture, awe-inspiring historical sites).

 

"I’ve never been to the Olympics - there’s gotta be parts of it that are better live. And it’s actually pretty easy and normal for me to visit China. My in-laws live there, so I visit once a year. I have a place to stay and relatives who speak Chinese… all in all, it kinda seems like I’d be crazy not to go."

 

We'll be checking in at Aleem in China from time to time.