Well today is the day, the opening ceremony for the Summer Olympics in Beijing. Today is going to be an extra busy today for me, as I have to jet over to the Microsoft Office to finally finish grading all the Microsoft Certified Masters test from the July, 2008 Directory Technologies rotation.

Around 6:30pm I finally finished up, met with the PM for Masters - Directory, and took off to get back to DHQ in time for the Olympics opening ceremony. Since they were supposed to be kicking off around 8pm (8pm, 8/8/08, since 8 is a lucky number). I took the subway from the Microsoft Office (business district on the east side of town) over to the Olympic Green line 8,ked got off to find that all access had been blocked, and there was close to 500 people standing around the station entrance. Asking around, I was told that I could not enter here with my OCD Access badge, as it was closed down, and I was told that I needed to go south 4 blocks so that I could go around the blockade. So I started walking, and walking. Ironically I was the only person wanting to get South, everyone else wanted to get North to watch the fireworks. The sidewalks were full with hundreds of people, and at times I was forced to stand still completely surrounded by a sea of people. It was by far the largest group of people I've been in. I was eager to get to the DHQ so that I could get a better view of Birds nest, and the finale. So after walking south for 6 blocks (not 4), I had to walk west for a few blocks to get around the section that was all closed down. While I went north I ended up going through 11 security checks, 2 of which turned me down, and made me walk around further (a few blocks around each time). End of the story I didn't get to the DHQ building until almost 8:45pm. You can see from the picture here that the Pangu Tower was broadcasting pictures and video of the Opening Ceremony and fireworks. This building just recently got finished, and was in the news as supposedly having a suite that Bill Gates purchased (which turned out to be a false story). This building complex is actually made up for 4 different buildings all in a row.

Once I got into DHQ, there were many great views, but very hard pictures to take given the glare from the lights inside the building. Here are a few attempts at the Birds Nest, and Water Cube.

You can see the water cube is set to rotating colors, but I personally enjoyed the multicolored (Red, Yellow, Green and Blue), and this is the first time we have seen this style used. The Rolling Pinks has been used over the last few days, so we've seen that one before.

Well out of at least 30 or 40 pictures, I caught at least one of the good shots of the fireworks:

After waiting until around 11:50pm (the longest we dared), we went out into the OCD to get some closer photo's and maybe some video of the Finale. On the way over to the Birds Nest, I caught a nice pic of an escort waiting for the end of the show:

Also shot a few more of the water cube up close and personal, the one on the left shows the "bubble's" in more detail.

Here is the torch getting lit, it actually started up like a fireball, and for a minute I wasn't quite sure what it was. I'll get another shot from up on the 11th floor later so you can actually see the torch itself. Right after the torch was lit, they went right into the fireworks, here are a few mixed shots. I also have uploaded 3 video's to YouTube that you can look over as well.

YouTube videos are here: (don't ask why I'm hosted on Japan's server right now, I don't know)

http://jp.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=chrisran

ALSO I'M VERY HAPPY TO REPORT THAT I HAVE TRACKED DOWN TICKETS TO SOME OF THE GAMES. For now I have tickets to the Artistic Gymnastics on the 13th and 15th, which are both Women's finals events. These didn't cost as much as I thought they would, thanks to some friends helping me negotiate for great pricing. I'll be on the look out for some additional tickets to non-gymnastics tickets next..

After finishing up the pictures, and wandering the OCD for a little while, I went back to the Apartment at 1:30am to crash for a few hours, as tomorrow we work a shift (up at 6am).. Till tomorrow (or eh, today...)

-Chris