My Street!

The Environment and China (through my camera lens)

Two cups of REAL coffee later...you're getting more updates today then the entire trip (brought to you by Starbucks). Below are some of the "environmental" things that I have noticed during my trip.

Solar heated water. In our hotel our (electric) water heater only turns on when we are actually using it; it does not store heated water.

Apparently, Coke is a Climate Friendly Company...according to their sign. This was taken at one of the Olympic venues. Beijing set out to host the first "Green" Olympics". I guess their sponsors are also jumping on board.

Less litter because of this trashcan in the park?



Smog Reduction...These pictures were taken 14 days and 5 days before the Olympics respectively. They were both taken from Tienanmen Square. This is pretty incredible. The smog reduction is probably due to many factors including the weather (it had rained a few days before the second picture), alternation of cars by even/odd license plates (excluding taxis and buses), and shut down of factories.

Even though cars are being added to the roads at a rapid rate, bicycle travel is still abundant. Many people have traditional bikes, but there are some motorized bikes (which still use less gasoline than cars).

All clothing is lined dried. I see clothes hanging in front of every shop and home. They save energy by using the sun's rays instead of a dryer.

I don't have a picture, but Walmart uses resuable shopping bags. One of the Olympic Merchandise stores had a sign that read "Please Save the Environment, bring your own bag" and they did not have any plastic bags in the store.

Some of my fave pics from Soccer Prelim Action

In front of the stadium in Tianjin.


GOAL!!!!!!!!!!!!! (If you zoom in, you can totally see it crossing the line!!)

Post Goal EXCITEMENT!!!!

My new Japanese friend...who gave me a hat to wear (it looked like a Japanese hairdo...).

Olympic Soccer Prelim Action

Above is the WAVE at one of the Olympic prelim soccer games that we saw yesterday. We traveled to Tianjin to see USA vs Japan and Holland vs Nigeria. The US vs Japan game had 37,000+ people in attendance and the Holland/Nigeria game brought out 57,000+ people. The US scored the only goal of the night, winning their match. The USA/Japan game was good and it was awesome to see the USA, but the second game was much more intense. I loved EVERY second of the two matches. Their skills are incredible! The goalie from Holland was incredible and apparently it wasn't even the starting goalie. The players flew through the air and took incredible shots on goal that were met by flying goalies. The fans for Holland were WILD...they were decked out in their orange gear, including balloon hats and wigs. This was only a preliminary game and it was incredible...I CANNOT WAIT FOR THE OLYMPICS TO START.


Keep your fingers crossed for me....I might get WATER POLO TICKETS (for $5 USD !). My TA is a former Olympian (figure skating, 2002) and she is getting tickets from the US Olympic Committee and there were 5 water polo tickets available. We had to do a raffle for the tickets that she could get...and my name got picked!!! That means as long as the tickets are available from the USOC I will get to see an aquatic sport!!!! The only disappointing thing is that water polo is not played in the water cube, which means I probably will not get to see that venue.

Torch Relay Fake Out.

Above is a video of my place of residency. The video really makes it look a lot cleaner and developed than it is, but it is a taste of where I live :-) I don't know how to rotate videos so you'll have to turn your head and I promise I will shoot videos the other way before I upload them.


So, on the August 6th we tried to go to the Torch Relay as it entered the Temple of Heaven (the last stop of the day). We lined up several hours before hand along with everyone else and their long lost brother. The atmosphere was intense. At first it was relaxing and we had a great spot, then the police moved everyone back past the police tape. The torch was scheduled to pass by at 3:50 pm and right before that time either the police broke the tape or people broke through and people ran closer to the road. Basically the fight or flight instinct set in and we SPRINTED so that we could keep our spot in the front of the line. We stood on a ledge above where the torch was supposed to come through for another hour or so, forming a chain link with our arms so that the people behind couldn't push us down or push in front of us. The police reorganized the people all around us with barricades several times and people kept breaking through them. We saw a few vans come through with Olympic cheerleaders to get the crowd pumped, but no torch. The police and security officers kept rearranging people and we stood anxiously with people pushing and elbowing behind us. We watched some vans enter the Temple of Heaven and about a half an hour later we saw them exit, with an unlit torch. Then the crowd and police dispersed. I think that the crowd was too out of control for the police to control so they decided to end the torch relay earlier than planned. It was quite the adventure. Below is a picture of some of the crowd control action.
After the torch let down, a few of us went to my new favorite restaurant...Hu Tong Pizza. Pizza is a pretty nice break from the food at the hotel. I have to be honest, I am not so much enjoying the food recently. Yesterday there was a worm in my juice, just swimming around. Today there were shells in my egg. The other day there was hair in the soup. When we saw the people who work at our hotel cutting the vegetables on the street outside our hotel, that kind of grossed me out. Although there is much not to be desired at our hotel as far as food goes, I do enjoy a few of the dishes. Rice is a staple (obviously?), but the blandness is wonderful among the other adventurous choices. There is an egg and tomato dish that is pretty delicious, the orange chicken always flies off the table (probably because it is familiar?) and I like pretty much anything with chicken and peppers.


I am in Starbucks now, so I have unlimited Internet (until we go watch the Opening ceremony on t.v.) so I will probably give another update about the SWEET OLYMPIC soccer games we saw last night before I leave. I did update more pictures, so feel free to check those out!

Love from China!

"Real Food", Increased Security & The Olympics

The opening ceremony of the Olympics is drawing near and the changes in Beijing in the past 2 weeks and even past 2 days have been noticeable. We visited Tienanmen square on Sunday about 2 weeks after our first time there and the number of flower arrangements had increased tremendously. They have flower arrangements representing all of the sports and the different Olympic symbols. The number of foreigners has also increased dramatically even in the past two days! A bridge that we walked over on Sunday had one police officer and Tuesday the same bridge had seven! The security has increased dramatically.

We have gone out to eat "real" food a few times....It makes the monotony of the hotel food more bearable. Last night we had Italian food and the restaurant made us feel like we were in Italy...it was wonderful!!!

I'll write soon :-)

Oh, China!

Well, I decided that slamming my camera on my desk would be a good idea...and oh it was because MY CAMERA WORKS!!! I am totally excited and I have taken lots more pictures (check them out: http://picasaweb.google.com/BrittneyABaker/

I don't have a ton of time to update right now, so I will give you a flavor for some of the things I have noticed/experienced and if you want the full play by play story of my adventures you can ask :-)

Snack Foods: WILD flavors!! So far, I have tried lots of different Popsicles for SUPER CHEAP, thirty-five cents (USD) and less...and they are delicious. I also ate Chips Ahoy that were coffee flavored, which I am pretty much in love with. The potato chip flavors are endless. Today I had Italian Red Meat Flavor, which surprised me in how good they actually were. I also enjoy this apple nutrient milk...I have no idea what it is really called because it is written in Chinese. It looks like milk, but isn't refrigerated and tastes like a caramel apple.

Smog Reduction: In the past few days we have seen a significant reduction in the amount of smog. One of our first days in China we went to Tienanmen square and you could barely make out the picture of Chairman Mao across the square, but we went back today and it was crystal clear. I have even seen blue skies the last few days. China has really pulled it together for the Olympics!

Fashion: Men wear their shirts half rolled up so that their stomachs and sometimes even nipples hang out. I thought that this would just occur on the hottest days, but no...it happens all of the time. Other men prefer to wear their button down shirts completely open. Today I had a pretty good sighting of a man wearing a shirt rolled up to his neck and a button down shirt over it that was completely open. Heels and looking very trendy or not matching at all are the trends in women's fashion here. I saw someone walking down the Great Wall in 3 inch pointy-toed heels....ridiculous! The babies don't wear diapers, but just have the butt slits so that they can easily use the bathroom in the streets.

Celeb Status: Pretty much wherever we go people want to take pictures of us. Today we had a free day and a small group of us hung out around Tienanmen Square. During that time we took about 50 pictures with different Chinese people. Many of those pictures were with the Mongolian Army Band, who were in Beijing to play in the opening ceremony. Many of these mens rocked the mullet! They each wanted to take a picture with us individually.

Driving: There are basically no enforceable traffic laws. People just merge when they want to. They swerve around the streets and it is basically crazy. Tonight I almost died and our taxi driver almost killed about 15 people on bikes.

I'll try to update more writing soon, but I will definitely update the pictures!

Miss you! Love you!
B