Ni hao,
Last time I left you I was done with the USOC Goodwill Tour.
Everyone left on Sunday the 5th and I was all alone. Luckily, a few of the USOC crew were sticking around for the 1-year out celebrations on the 8th in Beijing and they invited me to attend the festivities with them. I dressed up pretty nice as they said there could be a chance of TV cameras being put on me. It was about 93.25 degrees that day and I was in a pretty nice kit. As we tried to get into the first road block that held people out of Tiananmen Square where the celebrations were taking place, we ran into a problem- the police would not let us in. Even after the USOC ladies whipped out their USOC business cards, they still denied us entry. So we decided to walk a good two miles to another entry, but still no luck. We were locked out of the celebrations with the thousands of other Chinese looking on and...Donny was soaked with sweat and had blisters on my heels already. We then decided to eat. After having a nice time walking and finding a place to eat, we decided on the Hyatt. As we were eating, my company noticed swimmer Michael Phelps attending the buffet. I thought "If Michael is here, perhaps my agent is with him as well?" (since we have the same agent). Sure enough he was there and our first meeting was in front of the sushi. Now that we were done eating, so were the celebrations. Long story short: it took us 2 hours of walking around to find a taxi. WHAT A NIGHT! I'm pretty sure I'm going to throw the suit I was wearing away haha. Thanks for good memories ya'll.
On Thursday night I went to see an acrobatic show. The show was amazing and something that I've never had the chance to see before. The acrobats were so talented, it's a must-see.
Friday I went riding on the street, which, by the way, I am getting pretty good at. Anyway, my fear was realized- I got a flat tire. As I rolled to a stop I was thinking of how lucky I was that I brought money so I could get a taxi. As I looked to my right, I found something great. There are mobile fix-a-flat stations all over the city. This particular one was a man and his wife. Laying in the dirt, they had tires and tools and patches to fix flats. This is a very smart idea because of how many bikes are around. This man spent 20 minutes applying three patches to my tire. I cringed at how he was treating my precious bike, but I really wanted to keep riding so I just turned away. This man charged me USD equivalent of .$75 for his time, not bad eh? I'm still riding on his patch work.
Saturday night I had a real privilege of being on the BBC World Radio Show. The show I was doing was live so I had to come into the studio at 1 am for the interview. Nothing like talking to 50 million people at 1 am haha. No worries though, it went quite well and I'm thankful for the opportunity. Thanks Steve!
The last few days I've just been hanging out trying to get some rest before the USA team comes in on Wednesday. I have arrived in Laoshan where the Supercross race will be held next week. I will update after the race. Dang, I'm so a resident of China now...and I love it.
Xie-Xie
Donny
