Seeing Gold

Jaime Brassard/Berlin, Vt

Last night the U.S. Women’s Soccer team won the gold, in match agaist Brazil, and today they stopped by to talk about it.

I just had one of the best meals since I came to China…

Jaime Brassard/ Berlin VT

and it was Japanese.  Today was very hot, the haze is back, and after 20 days of Olympic craziness, I’m finally starting to wear down.   So after a long day  of walking around, carrying a backpack, a camera and tripod, Aixa and I just wanted a nice meal.  So we went to the Japanese restaurant in our hotel.  We were seated at a hibachi table and the show began.

This was our chef. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Attention Shrimp!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fried rice

 

 

 

 

 

And some delicious vegetables.  There would be pictures of the Sushimi and beef courses but somehow they disappeared from my plate.

So we got a break, saw a show, and had a meal all at once.  Now I’m ready to go, go, go  for a few more days.

Chips Ahoy!

Jaime Brassard/Berlin, VT

This will be my last chip related entry.  I invite you, now, to watch as we play GUESS THAT FLAVOR!

 

 done

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Olympic Moments

Jaime Brassard/ Berlin VT

Just a few quick Olympic Pictures.  We can’t see the torch from our live shot location and I hadn’t actually seen it in person, untill last night.

This is the closest I’ll come to Olympic Gold…

It belongs to Mary Whipple, the coxswain of the Women’s Eight Rowing Team.  She is basically in charge of the boat and helped lead the team to gold.

Finally I saw this shop…

 

and now that I’ve seen it I think back and realise I haven’t seen too many bald chinese.

My Dinner with Bing

Jaime Brassard/ Berlin, VT

Yesterday, after shooting a story in the suburbs of Beijing, Aixa, our translator Mady, our Driver Bing and myself went to lunch.  We told Bing to find us a place, and he did.  It was probably the Chinese equivalent of a dive restaurant.  It didn’t look all that clean or inviting.  There were no pictures on the menus.  But Bing said it was okay, and we trusted him.  And he was right. 

 

 The food was pretty good.  I have no idea what it was called or, really, what was in it, and I had a little trouble with the noodles…

 

 

Mady tried to help  but they were just to long.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The best part of the meal was the part that Bing ordered.  He asked us if we like potatoes when we ordered.  When we said we did, he pointed to the menu and this is what arrived.

It’s chunks of potato, deep fried, and covered in carmelized sugar.  It sounded weird but it was really tasty.  Bing taught us how to eat it.  First…

Grab a chunk, and pull it free from the mass of potatoes.  In the process, you are supposed to gather up the sugar strings that are formed, and then….

You dip the chunk in water to cool it down.  Due to being deep fried, and covered in molten sugar, these puppies are pretty hot! And finally….

You pop it in your mouth, and burn your tounge, because it really is too hot and you didn’t leave it in the water enough to cool it down.

Ow. 

Still HOT!

But delicious and surely something I never would have tried if I hadn’t come to Beijing.

How do you make 9 Americans in Beijing Happy?

Jaime Brassard/ Berlin, VT

You turn this….

Into  this!

 And yes that did say corn cup.  Just one of the many little diferences.

All the way from across the pond…

Come the Pukka Pies Band! 

Formerly the English Supporters Band, they normally entertain crowds at Futball games in England, but they’re here in Beijing to rally support for British atheletes competing in the games.  The bad news for England, the band is not allowed to bring thier instruments into any of the venues, so they’ve settled for entertaining people in the streets. And entertain the do. They didn’t miss a beat of music or a chance to crack a joke as they walked around the Bird’s Nest.

They even tried to cheer up the folks in the NBC workspace.  But Security didn’t find it that funny.

Here they are getting turned away.

 

It’s too bad, everyone could use a good laugh.

FUWA-A-GOGO

Jaime Brassard/ Berlin VT.

Not content with just one, this time around the Chinese bring us 5, that’s right 5, Olympic mascots.

The Fuwa.

They’re cute and cuddly and they are everwhere.  They are plastered in flag, banner and poster form all over the city.  You name it, it comes with in Fuwa: notebooks, backpacks, pins, rings, towels, hats, umbellas, pinwheels, stamps, even gold coins.  So of course, the Fuwa had to be the subject of a story and since there are five we wanted to find out who was the favorite among fans.  Apparently, this was a really good idea, because in the course of our hard hitting investigation we ran into these folks…

A team from a Korean newspaper doing the same story we were! 

Great minds think alike and, apparently, the high five is cross cultural.

 

By the way, the favorite Fuwa, based on the very scientific study made by both news teams, is Huanhuan, the Olympic Torch.