Qingdao – Day 7 of Sailing

August 15th

Couple of things I keep forgetting to mention….

You will not see sailing in the U.S.
NBC is not here in Qingdao. This is, I believe, the only sport they are not covering.

I know I have told some this already – but in case others aren’t aware, here is what I am doing:
I am working for Beijing Olympic Broadcasting (aka: BOB). Every Olympic city has this network – for example, in Athens, it was AOB. It is called “the world feed” – which means our broadcast is sent up on the satellite to all the countries that do not have a national tv network providing coverage – like NBC does for the U.S. We are very spoiled with the coverage NBC does – most countries do not have coverage like that.

So at other venues – like swimming and gymnastics for example – there are 2 broadcasts being done. The BOB version for the world feed and the NBC version for the U.S.

Yes, my graphics are in English. But there is not much information on them. There is the country flag, the 3 letter country abbreviation, the sailor’s name and their score. So if you follow sailing, you would likely know how to read it no matter what your native language is.

The other thing I have been meaning to tell you is that the body of water that the sailing is taking place on, is the Yellow Sea.

Another thing…. I have been told my blog is too much about eating and food. Which, yes, is a valid point. But please understand 3 things….

1. I am extremely high maintenance when it comes to food. I have come a LONG way over the past few years and eat so many more things today, than I used to. Three years ago, you couldn’t pay me to eat a hamburger or any processed meat or pretty much any meal that I did not prepare myself. Hell, it was only last August that I ate a hot dog for the first time in 20 years! So eating anything, in a country such as China, astounds people who truly know me, my food issues and germ phobias.

2. TV people love to eat and drink! Name a city and a TV freelancer will tell you the best dinner in town.

3. There are people on this crew from all over the world (Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Australia – you name it!) No one likes the food here. Each day we compare stories of where we all ate the night before and each try to find that one place that tastes like home.

And there are so many things here that you have to avoid because it was “washed” or cooked using their water – which is not safe to consume. They even have notices in the hotel that remind you to only drink the bottled water.

So yes, I do write about food, a lot. But that is part of this experience.

On to my day….

Had heard about a market that is supposed to have lots of things to buy for souvenirs. I believe it is Jima Lu ??
So I took a taxi to this place in the morning to do a little shopping.






There are endless shops and each have 3 levels. I only spent about an hour – so I will go back next week to finish checking it out.

Got to work and sailing was delayed again!
There was finally wind, but it was blowing in the wrong direction.
We were behind from yesterday, so now we had 25 races scheduled for today. It was not looking good.

So lots more waiting… and a little napping.

Ben on left and Tim on right

Alex decided to viedo tape them and made a video of them snoring. Here he is loading the video onto Ben’s computer while he sleeps


It made for a good laugh once Ben & Tim woke up!

Sailing eventually began just before 4 – so then there was a scramble to edit. We ended up only editing 10 races since more had to be postponed once it got dark.

When I was leaving, I noticed how nice the area is around the compound after dark


The buildings that face the marina have all sorts of light displays and videos playing on them (would be quite annoying if you lived in one of them)

Qingdao – Day 6 of Sailing

August 14th

I started today by not going to breakfast. I instead went to the Starbucks down the street for a boiling hot cup of coffee.

I have not had a “real” cup of coffee in over 3 weeks. It’s just so hot here, coffee is the last thing I have wanted.

So, yes, Starbuck looks exactly the same here. Except for the Chinese signage.


And I must say, it was the very first thing that tasted EXACTLY the same as it does in the U.S. They have to be using bottled water.

I sat there for about 20 minutes – waiting for the coffee to cool to a sip-able state. I only drank about half because I wanted to get on with my day.

Rode my bike to the boardwalk-ish area where I knew there were some tourist shops.

On the way, I stopped at the big red statue thing to take another photo because I now know what it is.






Well, I don’t know what the statue is named, but I do know it is on the May 4th Square – which was named after a nationwide protest. (?)

I then made it to the market area and found a fence to lock my bike to. Walked around and was yelled at by 100s of vendors begging me to look at their stuff. There were easily over 100 places – think flea market stalls. But as I walked along, I realized each place had the same stuff.

I did buy a few things – spent about an hour there.

Went back to the hotel and decided to eat lunch there since I didn’t eat breakfast. I had the buffet – which is basically the only option anywhere. They had chicken & pork kebabs and since it was raw, I could indeed identify it. So I had them grill me some. Also had some rice and cucumbers. I poured soy sauce on my rice, only to find out it basalmic vinegar. Surprise!

I didn’t end up eating the meat because it was undercooked. So basically, I had cucumbers and Pepsi.

Got to work around 1:15. Sailing had been delayed due to lack of wind. Rumor was, they weren’t going to sail at all today. But the races can’t be cancelled until 4pm. So we had to sit and wait.

At some point, I went to the post office which is out on the pier. The postcards I had bought, were pre-stamped for China (.80 yuan). I knew I had to add more postage to get them to the U.S. (it takes 4.5 yuan to get to the U.S.) The last set of post cards I had sent, I simply gave to the concierge at the hotel and paid them to get the postage. Which, after today, I learned was the way to go.

I get into the post office – which is maybe a 12x12 room with 20+ people in it. No A/C. They don’t understand what I am asking for. So I point to the address on one of the post cards – “USA”. They then got it. I paid the difference – which was 3.7 yuan for each card. Is there an easy combination of stamps? Of course not! I am not lying when I say it took 2 girls over 25 minutes to count out the stamps. I had already paid and didn’t know how to tell them forget it and give me the money back. They counted out various combinations of stamps to equal 3.7 yuan. Some postcards have 6 stamps on them! So my apologies if the words are covered up. I had 20 postcards – so it took me another 20 minutes to lick all the stamps.

They were stuck to my hands because I was dripping with sweat. All these people swarmed to see what was going on – the post office girls were all distressed over counting the stamps, so I had people all around me the whole time, pushing to see what was going on. I literally got so fed up, that I started to push them away because they were touching my stamps that I still had to lick.

My shirt was dripping wet by the time I got out of there. So, morale of the story – you all better appreciate those damn post cards!

And who knows if they will ever make it there anyway. All the mail is read before it leaves the country – so I wrote very generic & happy words with hopes they would make it to you.

The envelopes here don’t even have the glue stuff on them. Which is bizarre! I guess it is so everything can be inspected first.

Anyway, the races were cancelled at 4. So I went back to the hotel and watched Slingbox and took a little nap.

I am happy to report – that during my after work shower – I noticed that the mystery hair is gone from the shower wall! Only took 10 days! (Housekeeping must be reading my blog)

This evening, I met up with about 15 people from the crew to go to a Mexican restaurant. We split up into cabs and got the district where it was supposed to be. All we knew was that it was across from the Wal-Mart. Yes, there is a Wal-Mart here


Anyway, 2 people with us speak Chinese, so they kept asking people where the Mexican place was and no one knew. To me, this was a bad sign if the locals didn’t even know where it was.

Eventually, “Z”, went into Wal-Mart to ask in there. Come to find out, it was a Mexican store that sold t-shirts!

So everyone spilt up and went to different places. I was actually ready to eat Chinese, but Christina wanted to go to Pizza Hut, so I went there with her. She was right, at least we knew what we were eating.

Afterwards, we walked around for a while, but it was raining, so we gave up and went back to the hotel.

Sorry - I can't upload anything right now.

Hopefully will be able to when I get up in the morning (aka: your Thursday evening)

Qingdao – Day 5 of Sailing

August 13th

Started day with a run on the treadmill. It is so incredibly hot in the gym and you are inhaling cigarette smoke the whole time, so it is very enjoyable!

Stayed in this morning – didn’t feel that great. Did some laundry in the bathroom sink. Here is my “dryer”

I can’t wait to use an actual washer & dryer again – not to mention Snuggle! I was able to find Tide, but no Snuggle.

I have observed that everywhere you go, there are attendants cleaning and wiping things down. However, it still smells and appears dirty. I have come to the conclusion that if they only added some bleach, this place would be sparkling clean and smell free!

For example, I see them vacuuming all the time in the hotel, but the carpet is still dirty. And there has been a hair on my shower wall since the day I arrived. I look at it everyday and wonder if the housekeeper will get it today (and who does it belong to?).
So bottom line, they make it seem like they are cleaning – when in reality….

Work went fine. 4 races got postponed until tomorrow because of there were a lot of delays today.

Looks like there are starting to set up the staging area for the medals ceremonies.


This is something that is rare – seeing a Cavaliers jersey! Actually, I am pretty sure it is the first one I have seen in China. If you see anything NBA here, it is the Rockets. (And even though you can’t tell from the back, he was Chinese.)


I need my nails done. I don’t know if they will make it another 2 weeks! I could get them done here – but I fear the spas don’t have the same health standards as I am accustomed to. So I am gonna try to wait it out.

Have I mentioned how hot it was here?
Did you notice in the photos from yesterday our uniform shirts? Long sleeves!
We are the only venue that was issued shorts – so we are super lucky!
However, the girls on our crew were not issued shorts, only pants. How sexist is that?
But, I will admit, because we are hours away from Beijing, our venue managers allow us to all wear shorts and ANY shorts – not just the uniform ones.

After work I went to the Hisense Mall. Which is a super fancy-schmancy mall. I mean the kind of stores you only see in fashion magazines (Prada, Versace, Gucci, Tiffany, Hermes, and all sorts that I don’t know how to pronounce or spell!) Not at all like Easton or Tuttle!

There was a fancy supermarket in the basement. Again, a high end version of Whole Foods – which fascinates me – because to me – Whole Foods is the grocery of all groceries! I wanted so much to buy a pineapple – but what would I do with it? I have no way to cut it. If only they sold the fresh precut version (like Publix, Kroger & Whole Foods)

I bought some cheese and orange juice because they are things I miss and things they had U.S. versions of (Land O Lakes & Dole)

The intriguing thing about this mall was the parking situation. They have all these girls in white dresses and huge white hats directing you where to park your car or bike. 2 girls chased me down to make sure I had locked my bike. The first one mimed locking my bike and I nodded ‘yes’.

They all have like secret service headsets and microphones – so the next girl stopped me and radioed the another girl to check on my bike to ensure (again) it was under lockdown before I entered the mall.


Didn’t feel like going out. Hoping to get out of my ‘funk’ tomorrow.

Ate dinner alone the hotel – but had asparagus and it was fabulous! It is one of things I have missed over the past few weeks. (Ok, if had ordered “as is” off the menu, it would of come with fried quail eggs. (what?) But have any of you ever known me to EVER order something as it comes on the menu?)

Even though I am here 12 more days – which seems like an eternity – I need to take advantage of the opportunity to take in the sites.

Tomorrow is a new day :)

Qingdao - Day 4 of Sailing

August 12th

Nothing eventful this morning. Just went over to the freaking Carrefour. I purchased the much needed drain-o type product for the bathroom sink.

I also picked up 2 baby outfits. I knew that no one would believe me if I explained what babies wear here (more like what they don’t wear!) – so I got 2 as proof. I can’t bring myself to take a photo of any of the babies as I don’t want Dateline NBC confiscating my camera.

Kids don’t wear diapers here. Baby pants & shorts are open in the crotch and back. When the kid has to go, they just go, and IT goes where ever they are. My friend Christine, who has been here, had told me about it, but I just couldn’t envision it.

It is very strange to see the kids out in public like this. Me being a germ freak – I just can’t imagine how unsanitary this has to be. But at least this way, you never mistake a boy for a girl or visa-versa.

I also picked up a wrench to carry on my bike just in case there is another pedal incident.

The drain-o stuff worked. The label was in Chinese so I am not sure how I was supposed to use it. Or what it was made of – so I may have inhaled deadly toxins – but my sink drains now, so I don’t really care what chemicals were in it.

I went into work around noon because Billy was going to let me go out on one of the chase boats at 1. So I needed to get in early to set up my machine.

A chase boat goes out halfway thru the day and picks up the video cards from the camera guys from the different courses. That enables us to start editing before all the races are done.

We were out for about 1.5 hours and it was awesome!! I wish I could do this everyday.

Here is the chase boat


This is what it looks like from the water – all the blue umbrellas on the pier thingy are spectators

Here are some shots of the city









There are 5 courses out in the water – they are anywhere from 10-40 minutes out from the marina.

The area is blocked off by military boats so no other boats can get into the race course. If you look really closely, you can see them.






Allegedly, out there is a huge net across the bay that is keeping the algae out of the bay.

The race course seems like a big mess of boats. How they know where they are going is beyond me. The finish is 2 boats with “finish” flags posted.


Here are 2 of our boats we shoot video from:



There are 4 people on each boat.
The driver – who is someone who knows the sport – usually a sailor who didn’t make the cut for the Olympics.
The camera guy.
An AD – who writes down what shots the camera guy got, from which course, at what time of day. This makes it so the editors know where on the video the highlights are located.
The 4th person is an audio person who holds the big boom microphone pole. They are local Chinese students.


When the boats leave the marina, everyone has to have a life jacket on. But once they are out in open water, they take them off since it is so freaking hot. But they make the Chinese students keep them on. A couple of them don’t even know how to swim.

Here boats are coming around a “mark” (big orange thing) – which is like a corner of the course. This was the 470 Women’s race #3 - I know they are women because there is a red diamond at the top of women’s sails


This is a photo of our crew taping boats come across the finish line.


The sails are amazing – look at the flags!



Here are some of the 470 Men’s race #3



When we pick up the tapes – they are put in a ziplock bag with the log and then handed over to the chase boat. From afar – it could look a little shady. A speed boat approaches a boat, a plastic baggie is exchanged and then the speed boat races back to the marina.





This is when we were coming back to the marina – shots of downtown Qingdao








Here is a shot of me & Billy’s desk. (Well he has a corner of it at least)

You can see I have all the boats posted on the wall in front of me so I can attempt to know what I am talking about when figuring out which boats are which.

This is one other area of the compound I have not shared yet. They are for the various TV networks – their correspondents, producers, editors, etc. are in these tiny rooms all day preparing for their news hit at the end of the races. Some also take our broadcast (video) and add their own commentators to the live races.


Went out in the evening with a few friends – nothing eventful.

I kinda hit a wall tonight. I was sweating all thru dinner and at the bar and everywhere. I am sick of it! Growing up in SW FL, I am accustomed to heat & humidity – but everything is so well air conditioned in FL. Not here!

I am missing real food, a bed wider than 3 feet, a bed with a top sheet (only a comforter here), the ability to do my own laundry, being able to plug something in without finding the proper adapter - just little things that are adding up.

Qingdao - Day 3 of Sailing

August 11th

Before I go into my daily rant….. I must stop and thank a couple of people who have made this trip possible – and honestly – make it possible for me to do what I do for a living.

My neighbors, Deb & Malinda - hey take care of my house. Get my mail, paper and packages daily. Make sure the trash goes out, water the yard, the plants – all those tedious tasks that I am forever grateful for. Most importantly, they also keep my squirrels and birds fed! Basically – they make sure my house appears to be “lived in” when I am away. And keep me posted on neighborhood gossip!

In addition, there is Dave. He does the yard work and pays the bills. (Okay, he fills out the signed checks I leave – he doesn’t literally “pay” the bills) He also provides endless emotional and comical support.

Thank you guys – I couldn’t be here without you!

On to Monday….
Got up and worked out again.

Decided to spend my morning looking for the beach – which is close to the hotel.

I ventured out on the bike. Found the various parks and shorelines. It was a nice day – hot – but nice for a bike ride.

Here are shots of the marina from this side of the bay

Looks like the algae is coming back

Here are just some shots along the way

Part of our coverage for sailing includes cameras that are up in helicopters. The camera man has to have military clearance to be in the helicopter. There are also many things they are not allowed to shoot with the camera. The camera man is to point the camera up at the blades when they pass over these areas (I met of the camera guys the other nite).

Anyway – apparently behind this big billboard are ground to air missiles – one of the places that can’t be shown on camera


When ever China wants to hide something – the put up these huge Olympic billboards. Be it military secrets, slums, construction, etc. Anything not pretty, gets shielded with a billboard.

Anyway – I was really enjoying my ride. So nice to be out and feeling the ocean breeze. I had gone several miles and was almost to the beach.

Then one of my pedals fell off!

I stopped and tried to put it back on and had no luck.

I was this close to the beach, I decided to just walk the bike the rest of the way.

After seeing the beach (and getting no where near the water), I attempted to put the pedal on again. Nope. Even cut my finger this time. So I decided to walk until I found a police stand – they are everywhere.

Of course, this is the time I can’t find one.

BUT, I did find a Olympic Info & Help tent – which are typically every few blocks.
I mimed what happened and one of them spoke a little English. So they made me sit down to rest while they tried to fix. They couldn’t figure it out either.

The guy that spoke English said – “wait, we get someone to fix”.
So I sat there a while and one of the girls noticed my bloody finger. Out comes the first aid kit and something is being spread on my finger. I told myself it was benedictine on a cotton ball – so lets just keep with that theory. I was then bandaged and they tried to ask me questions while we waited. One of the girls gave me a bracelet. I have no clue what it says.

I was to the point that I was about to tell them to get me a taxi because I had to get to work. I figured I would deal with the pedal once I got to work cuz there are tools there.

Then runs up this man with a bag. I guess it was one of the volunteers relatives cuz he wasn’t wearing the volunteer uniform. They all swarmed around him and helped fix the pedal.

I was amazed at how eager they are to help here. I have heard other stories from people on the crew as well that have needed help from these volunteers.

On the way back – I found this statute which is the symbol for sailing.


There are things like this all over Beijing. But we are finding that there is very little here in Qingdao about sailing. We can’t even find sailing specific Olympic gear.

Got back to the hotel and quickly got ready for work and on my way.