Green with Envy

Yesterday we went on a tour of the Olympic Green with some of our tennis photo staff group and bosses. I have to admit that when I heard that we were going on a tour I thought they meant a guided tour by some Olympic volunteer or staff member and go inside some of the venues such as the Water Cube and Bird's Nest, but it turned out just to be our bosses showing us around to places they had already visited on the Green. These included a set of huts that were dedicated to different regions and cities in China called China Story. I do not recall the name of city the first hut was dedicated to, but it had several exhibits. First was a  man carving wooden sculptures with toads which are known as auspicious animals in East Asia, and then one creating pictures with large stamps with multiple colors. A woman was also embroidering in a special manner that allowed each side of the cloth to have different colors, which in her case were reflective threads that highlighted different aspects of a cat on each side. Lastly a man was creating sculptures of a phoenix and dragon using melted sugar. The second hut we visited was dedicated to Shanghai and included a variety of stringed instruments. The Olympic Super Store turned out to be our last stop on the tour because of the long lines we had to wait in to get inside. This place had any and everything Olympic that you could ever want, and consequently it was absolute mayhem -  it was like they were giving the stuff away for free! I did some final Olympic themed shopping, including some more pins as I was hoping they would encourage some more pin trading. More on that later... Our final stop was the McDonald's on the Green as were in a slight rush to get to an acrobat performance later that evening so we had to eat on the go. I tried to exchange my Mizzou pin, but it seemed liked every single McDonald's employee already had one! 

We ended up being able to take a direct bus from the Olympic Green to the Poly Theater where the performance was. The tickets were free and courtesy of BOCOG. Every act, from the contortionists, jugglers, and tumblers to acrobats had a sense of whimsy about it. It was a feast of colors and tricks played on the eyes to create a bizzare fantasy world. Some of the acts were very similar to those I had seen at the show at Mizzou this winter, but overall more spectacular and over the top in terms of technology and tricks done.