As promised, here we are with another visit to China before the Olympics begin today (08-08-08) - [original blog version was a couple days earlier].
If you're an Olympian or a spectator, the adventure of experiencing China's opening on the world stage promises to be nothing short of thrilling.
The infrastructure, including Qingdao Olympic Village, has been ready for the influx of athletes, officials, and journalists, and Beijing and Hong Kong are welcoming spectators.
Since Olympic Village opened two weeks before the Olympics, many of the photographers, journalists, TV networks, as well as officials and athletes, have already been on site for a few days to a week or more.
Rehearsals for opening and closing ceremonies have gone well.
Everything looks wonderful! However, China's outward shine is understandably lacking a bit of luster, in the minds of journalists and a few IOC officials, at this writing, because of Internet access restriction issues for journalists reporting and recording the events.
This, coupled with the recent handling of the unrest in Tibet, has tarnished the otherwise (mostly) glowing sheen of China's entrance onto the pageant walkway, as it were.
For China visitors, in any capacity, none of this should change the spirit of adventure, though, in the next weeks and months.
Adventure, good or bad, positive or negative, is still adventure, and should be viewed and experienced as just that.
My adventures have not all been positive, but they've all been adventurous! I wouldn't expect it any other way.
If all experiences, and outcomes of those experiences, are known in advance to be comfortably positive, where is the sense of adventure? Predictability is generally the opposite of adventure.
"Indiana Jones" knew adventure had no bounds, and he left predictability behind in the classroom! So, if you're going to China anytime soon, will it be for the Olympics? Or will you go after the Olympic torch has been extinguished? Or will you opt for other adventure travel - to more far-flung parts of China - even during the Olympics? We've previously mentioned a few possibilities, and will discuss more distant destinations sometime after Olympiad XXIX is history.
China is, after all, a very large country, even if we don't consider the large semi-autonomous regions such as Tibet or Mongolia.
Of recent interest to me was the transportation across large expanses of China, from one city to another, one province to another.
There is no infrastructure of four-lane divided highways connecting distant cities like the Interstate Highway system (begun under President Eisenhower in the 1950s) does in the U.
S.
A.
Rather, Chinese President Hu Jintao has opted to connect his country by a gargantuan expansion of the air travel infrastructure that dwarfs anything ever attempted by any other nation until now.
The recent (February) opening of the world's largest airport terminal, in Beijing, is only the beginning; the main terminal - of three - is nearly two miles (3.
2 kilometers) in length, covering approximately 10,000,000 square feet (929,030.
4 square meters).
To meet demand, 97 more new airports are being built (and another planned for south Beijing within ten years).
And 3,200 new jet planes are being purchased.
If your adventure includes traveling to more than one main location in China - and why wouldn't it? - your travel can be the non-adventurous part of your itinerary.
With all new planes, new airports, courteous agents, free luggage check-in, flight hostesses who provide excellent service - with a smile!, and good food (yes, they have meals!), what could be more - well, mundane? Ha-ha! On top of all that, ticket prices - when bought in China - are a fraction of comparable distance flights in the U.
S.
A.
! Does it get any better?
If you're an Olympian or a spectator, the adventure of experiencing China's opening on the world stage promises to be nothing short of thrilling.
The infrastructure, including Qingdao Olympic Village, has been ready for the influx of athletes, officials, and journalists, and Beijing and Hong Kong are welcoming spectators.
Since Olympic Village opened two weeks before the Olympics, many of the photographers, journalists, TV networks, as well as officials and athletes, have already been on site for a few days to a week or more.
Rehearsals for opening and closing ceremonies have gone well.
Everything looks wonderful! However, China's outward shine is understandably lacking a bit of luster, in the minds of journalists and a few IOC officials, at this writing, because of Internet access restriction issues for journalists reporting and recording the events.
This, coupled with the recent handling of the unrest in Tibet, has tarnished the otherwise (mostly) glowing sheen of China's entrance onto the pageant walkway, as it were.
For China visitors, in any capacity, none of this should change the spirit of adventure, though, in the next weeks and months.
Adventure, good or bad, positive or negative, is still adventure, and should be viewed and experienced as just that.
My adventures have not all been positive, but they've all been adventurous! I wouldn't expect it any other way.
If all experiences, and outcomes of those experiences, are known in advance to be comfortably positive, where is the sense of adventure? Predictability is generally the opposite of adventure.
"Indiana Jones" knew adventure had no bounds, and he left predictability behind in the classroom! So, if you're going to China anytime soon, will it be for the Olympics? Or will you go after the Olympic torch has been extinguished? Or will you opt for other adventure travel - to more far-flung parts of China - even during the Olympics? We've previously mentioned a few possibilities, and will discuss more distant destinations sometime after Olympiad XXIX is history.
China is, after all, a very large country, even if we don't consider the large semi-autonomous regions such as Tibet or Mongolia.
Of recent interest to me was the transportation across large expanses of China, from one city to another, one province to another.
There is no infrastructure of four-lane divided highways connecting distant cities like the Interstate Highway system (begun under President Eisenhower in the 1950s) does in the U.
S.
A.
Rather, Chinese President Hu Jintao has opted to connect his country by a gargantuan expansion of the air travel infrastructure that dwarfs anything ever attempted by any other nation until now.
The recent (February) opening of the world's largest airport terminal, in Beijing, is only the beginning; the main terminal - of three - is nearly two miles (3.
2 kilometers) in length, covering approximately 10,000,000 square feet (929,030.
4 square meters).
To meet demand, 97 more new airports are being built (and another planned for south Beijing within ten years).
And 3,200 new jet planes are being purchased.
If your adventure includes traveling to more than one main location in China - and why wouldn't it? - your travel can be the non-adventurous part of your itinerary.
With all new planes, new airports, courteous agents, free luggage check-in, flight hostesses who provide excellent service - with a smile!, and good food (yes, they have meals!), what could be more - well, mundane? Ha-ha! On top of all that, ticket prices - when bought in China - are a fraction of comparable distance flights in the U.
S.
A.
! Does it get any better?