Day 14 - Coming Soon

Travel Home

Day 13 - Coming Soon

Watch Olympic Events

Women's Basketball - Belarus vs. Russia & Spain vs. Czech Republic
Women's European Handball - Russia vs. Brazil & Romania vs. France
Women's Basketball - USA vs. Mali & Australia vs. Korea

Day 12 - Coming Soon

Watch Olympic Events

Men's Basketball - Iran vs. Lithuania & Croatia vs. Russia
Women's Beach Volleyball
Women's Soccer - Canada vs. Sweden

Day 11 - Coming Soon

2 Exhibition Games

vs. Tsinghua University High School
vs. Teenager Athletics Club of Beijing Dongzhimen High School

Day 10 - Coming Soon

Exhibition Game vs. Ing Lions A

Day 9 - Coming Soon

Exhibition Game vs. Ing Lions B

Day 8 - Let The Games Begin!

Our first stop Friday morning was the Supermarket where we were joined by many Beijing locals. After getting our shopping carts, we manoeuvred ourselves through the aisles crowded with people and picked up some things for breakfast. These included bread that we paired with trusty peanut butter and nutella, ice tea and two cases of water that were lugged back to the apartments. After putting away the groceries, us girls split up and did our own things. This trip has not allowed for much down time, so some showered, put up their feet and relaxed. The miles of walking and humidity added together take quite a toll on our energy. Others took advantage of this time and headed straight to the silk market (A place receiving lots of attention from our team, a few people in particular that just need just one more purse). Later Friday night, our 23 person crew taxied to the Goose and Duck Australian Pub for the Opening Ceremonies Party. At the door we were given firecracker type things filled with confetti to use during the night. And we did just that. There were two big screens displaying the opening ceremonies, and at the end of the countdown to commence the games, the air was filled with tiny pieces of confetti. At this point the smell of savoury food was wafting through the room and some decided to get in line for the dinner buffet. By this time, some had already managed to get their dinner consisting of chicken wings, bacon, beef, soup and salads. So the rest of us wandered up to get food not please to discover that EVERYTHING was gone. There were a few pieces of limp lettuce at the bottom of a salad bowl, a pot of soup and a tray or partially cooked hamburger patties. Not nearly enough to feed the rest of the hungry people. We hovered around the tables crossing our fingers that more food would be brought out, but after waiting about 20 minutes all that appeared was a plate of garlic bread. We moseyed back to our tables and watched the ceremonies on the big screen and cheered went Canada entered the stadium. By this time there were some hungry and tired girls ready to leave so that’s exactly what we did. By the time us girls got back safely and promptly to our apartments while some parents and coaches struggled to get a cab as they were where they were needed for the 90 000 people that attended the opening ceremonies. Some being less smart than others, a few decided to walk and hour and forty-five minutes in the wrong direction to hail a cab and got home a little late. So being a long day, everyone slept very well Friday night, in preparation for another busy day ahead.

Karla Josefson
Riverside Secondary
3D Premier Elite Member

Day 7 - Ballin' in China

Today we had our first basketball game in Beijing. It was nothing like we expected it to be. The minute we walked into the gym there were people shooting around everywhere, and the girls were definitely not short. Not only were we impressed with the players, but we were also impressed with the school grounds. It had a really nice outdoor track with 4 courts inside the track. The outside of the school looked like a university, so for a high school it was amazing. There are 3000 students attending the high school, along with 1000 staff members. The school is only for grades 10-12, and it is centered around sports. The inside of the school it pretty nice as well. There were separate halls for each sport, such as basketball and ping pong, and there were loads of pictures along all of the walls. So there we were in the gym for a short one hour practice before our game so we could get some of the rust off. We just did some basic shooting drills and ran some transition stuff. Once we had finished our practice it was time to start warming up and get ready for the game. With no clock to know how much time we got to warm up, we ended up only doing 2 different drills. Next thing we know the game was about to start and we were told to line up and exchange our gifts. We gave them Canada pencils, notepads, and tattoos, and they gave us a little Beijing school banner. The game was really intense and a lot harder than we thought it would have been which led to a loss for us...58-41. The other team was really well coached and knew exactly how to read and react. The girls had really good sportsman ship and seemed proud to take pictures with us after the game. We can only hope that the following teams will be like this one. After our game we all headed out for lunch. We ended up going to one of the top 8 restaurants in Beijing. We tried various types of food, like peeking duck, duck liver, and even a ducks kidney, so basically all duck. We also had cod and the way it was presented made it look like its insides were like fireworks...LOL! Even though it was rated one of the top 8 restaurants, they still served us the same thing we had been eating all week. Now that we’re back in our apartments we are just hanging out, and soon we will be heading out for pizza...finally some Canadian food!

Erika Vieweg,

Argyle Secondary School

3D Premier Elite Member

Day 6 - A Day For Sore Feet

6000km. The length of 10, 000 football fields or perhaps the distance Terry Fox ran on his journey across Canada. Regardless, it turned out to be one of the first pieces of information we received at 8am this morning. What may this be you ask? Well the team’s new matching t-shirts would tell you that “I have just climbed up the Great Wall of China.” Not all of it of course, but a substantial amount; about 1 in 6000th. The bus ride to the wall was about an hour and a half. The bus driver set the mood by serenading us with beautiful and jubilant Chinese music that he had blared with the intent of surround sound, I would assume. Once arrived at our destination most of the team took a bathroom break while Dan and Ramin took videos of our enthusiasm for the climb. Us women were fully prepared (and by women I mean Gemma and Dianne) with toilet paper for the squatters and disposable cups to use as filter masks for the unbearable stench. When everyone was ready, we took little gondolas up the mountain where we began our treacherous expedition. The hike was great, with a few races here and there. The fog was engulfing, leaving it difficult for us to see the vast distance of the wall. I felt elevated on clouds, even though breathing in smog made it a little less peaceful. Amidst our journey, we took tons of pictures with the team as did passerby’s and other tourists; including a Brazilian Olympic Handball Team who seemed quite enthused to see us. After two hours on the wall, we headed back down the mountain where we picked a spot to eat lunch. Before we were allowed to enter, our own Richard Simmons (Dan the man) led us through some partner stretches to fill a “soar” void so to speak. After a great and filling lunch, the team headed to the Ming Tombs which by the body language of everyone there, seemed to be a real hit. (not...but it was a great experience!) We got back to the apartments soon after, had fifteen minutes, and grabbed our basketball gear and took the subway to local outdoor courts. We planned to have a simple scrimmage but upon arrival, were surprised by the crowded courts. So scrimmaging together was not an option. We paid our 15 Juan and nervously laced up our shoes, being stared down and even laughed at by the confused yet amused guys/men around us. We knew we would have to play well to earn a spot on the court so that is exactly what we did. We split in to two teams of five and chose a court, asking the players if we could verse them. Although it was hard to communicate, we did our best and found ourselves ready to “hit the streets.) We ended up winning three out of four of our games (Karla, Erika, Alicia, JB and I)while the other five did just as well! It was proof by the reaction of the viewers that they had judged us strictly on stereotype. We left feeling proud and excited, while guys around us had given us uplifting cheers. From the courts we headed straight to the Pearl Market (again) and shopped for two hours. Everyone had a great time, bargaining to our preferred limits. By the subway ride home, everyone was soar and tired, but I guess that is what should be expected after climbing a wonder of the world, playing intense street basketball and shopping till we dropped. Proving that there is literally never a dull moment (with the exception of the tombs :p) here in Bejing, China.

Saraya Hickey
South Delta Secondary
3D Premier Elite Member

Day 5 - Lessons in Bartering

Today we went to the Forbidden City. It was really big; we didn’t get to see the whole “city”. While we were roaming the grounds there were NBC reporters and Kia, Elyse, Dan, Ramin and Thomas were interviewed. They were asked really random questions like would you hold a party here and obvy their answer was yes! To express how big the forbidden palace was we walked for an hour and didn’t even make it half way through the “city.” With the few exceptions of Kia, Elyse, Diane, Karalyn and Gemma they booked it and managed to get to the other end and apparently there was a beautiful garden. My last comment on how big it was is there were 9999 rooms in the “city”. After that we went to a mall nearby called the oriental plaza. It is the nicest mall in Beijing. We had our first Starbucks stop of the trip in this mall :D!! The mall was quite big with lots of stores. While at this mall Donna, Erika, Jen Marsh and I met two people involved in the Olympics named Kathleen and Don and we are now BBFE’S and we exchanged addresses and are now going to be pen pals the old school way. Since the mall was so big Saraya managed to lose her retainer so she was busy running around the mall looking for it and finally found it at the KFC left on a tray. This mall was also very special because Kia bought her first pair of sunglasses there! After the mall we went back to the apartments, had showers and headed to the Pearl Market. The Pearl market had thousands of different vendors. We all experienced bartering there and it was lots of fun! The people that worked there were a tad bit crazy. I was put in a headlock by one while trying to pull me into a store also while they tried to steal my wrist bands and Canada pins. They also managed to snipe Elyse’s, Donna’s, Erika’s and Ramin’s wrist bands as well. Some other stories about the market were they pulled out Erika’s hair and caressed it and stole the elastic, they were really funny they would always tell us to stop playing games and ask if were okay when we suggested a low price, and KIA managed to make the people angry believe it or not she had some hardcore bartering skills. Overall we came to the conclusion Saraya and Gemma were the best barterers. Saraya spent less than everyone but had double the stuff. The Vendors there were also very stubborn but they wanted our business more so eventually gave in. It was definitely more exhausting than normal shopping but worth the effort because it was a lot of fun.

Jen Bruce
Walnut Grove Secondary
3D Premier Elite Member

Day 4 - Home Away From Home

So today we finally got off the train and came to our apartments. When we first arrived we were pretty sketched out when we saw the outside of our building and when we found out that we were all in different buildings! Once we went inside our rooms we were excited to see how nice they were. The more we’re in them the better it gets. There have already been some great times on this trip in our apartment. To start off, Erika locked me in the kitchen and then someone started yelling ni hao so when i was finally let out, I came out to see Kia yelling it out our window just trying to make some friends with the locals. Then there was the washing machine, of course, in all Chinese. Erika was so excited that she got it working so we all came in to see her success only to find out that she had filled the dryer with water, pulled the hose off, and now there was water leaking all over our floor! Also our bathroom has the only mirror so we have rules like no one can change in the bathroom and they must leave the door open when showering. This way we can use the mirror and poke Donna through the shower curtain while she showers. Right outside the bathroom is a little rug on top of wood floor that i managed to completely wipe out on right in front of everyone in the room only to later find out that Erika did the same thing without anyone seeing. At night I’m sure we will always be entertained with dance parties as we have the one and only Shakira (aka. Elyse) and will enjoy trying to dance with Kia even though we don’t think she’ll enjoy it as much. Anyways, after getting settled in we went out to this woman’s apartment which was a cultural center. We learned mandarin, made dumplings, and learned calligraphy. Our instructor tripped over the whiteboard and slowly bailed in slow motion; probably the funniest part of the whole lesson. Oh, except when Erika sat on the bed and broke the bar under the mattress. Well, we are now back in our apartments and really tired so I’m sure we’ll all be sleeping soon.

Jen Marsh
Argyle Secondary
3D Elite Member

The Sleeper Train

Within everything we’ve all done so far has been a new and a cultural experience, so we’ve taken it for what it is. Let’s just say the sleeper train that took us from Xian to Beijing was an adventure in itself, which will be engraved in my mind forever. Erika and I had prayed that the train station wasn’t a reflection of the train, or else we would have been in for a rough 12 hour ride. When we stepped onto the train, suitcases and basketball bags in hand, we made our way down the cramped hallway (which couldn’t have been more than 2 ruler lengths in width… kill me now) squished between other teammates, parents, and locals. People were fighting their way down the hall, pushing and shoving trying to get into their own “rooms”… or what I would like to call, closets. Within about half an hour all of the locals were settled into their rooms, relaxing on their beds, and or eating a late dinner. While my room, which included Saraya, JB, Karla, Karla’s mom (Donna), and her grandma (Margaret), took around an hour and a half just trying to cram all of our suitcases into our room, thanks to Joe. The whole train experience would have been 10 times harder without him, considering he was one of the only ones who could translate for us. However, after we were all finally settled into our rooms, Karla, Saraya, and I went to the bathroom to brush our teeth and to use the toilets. We waited for about 15 minutes for a man to get out of the one washroom, only for him to start horking in the sink about 2 meters away (yeah that was super pleasant…). I had yet to use a “squatting” toilet, also known as a hole in the ground. But I figured, what the heck I’m on a sleeper train I might as well just try squatting… within about 3 seconds of opening the bathroom door, I started gagging and tears filled my eyes from the atrocious smell. We rate all of the bathrooms we use on a scale from a 1 star to a 5 star, well this was about a -5 star… I hope that paints a better picture for you. Most of the team and parents were in the hallway at the time just hanging out, and gladly witnessed my momentary sickness. You’d think my mother would be sympathetic… but no, her and Dan quickly whipped out their cameras to snag a couple pictures of me (got to love them!). ANYWAYS, after the lights went out and we got into our beds, I soon realized that the rooms were only a couple inches longer than me. Let’s just say that if I was sitting on my bed and stretched out my legs onto the bed across from me, I was only inches away from touching the opposite wall. I tossed and turned most of the night, the beds being rock hard didn’t help. But I would mostly wake up when the train was going around a bend, because it felt like your head was going downwards and the train was falling off the tracks. I know this may have made the train seem awful, but all in all, not a bad trip. It made some great memories that will stay with me for an endless amount of time. Onto the apartments we go…

Alicia Grossi
Point Grey Secondary
3D Premier Elite Member

Day 3 - The Human Pyramid

Well now that we’ve gotten used to eating this food, sleeping on these tables, and dressing for the weather, we are still nowhere near finding out how the Chinese live. So far being in Xian has been everything we thought it would be...the food is weird, the heat is unbelievable, the smells are interesting and most of all the drivers are CRAZY. Today along with yesterday we played chicken several times and cheated death at least a few times while sitting in our tour bus. We first started by going to the museum. I’d try to tell you what it was all about but honestly all i can remember is that there are Terra Cotta warriors everywhere. later on we visited the Jade and silk factories. Some of us bought scarves and bracelets , they were so nice that Karalyn will now have enough scarves to wear a different colour everyday of the week. While at the silk factory we learned that the price of silk carpets go by not only how many but how small the knots on the carpets are. The smaller the number the longer it takes to make, some even up to two years. After all that we ended up visiting the city wall of Xian. Some might have been tired from seeing the sites but Jen, Erika, Karla and myself managed to take center stage and let the others know how talented we are. Together we created a dance along with vocals that attracted a crowd of people along the wall. As a finale, our team had created a human pyramid in which the decent was not as graceful as the construction. So now that we have already had dinner and we have arrived at what seems to be a run down and packed train station, we can only hope that the train will be along soon and that it will be more comforting than what we can see.

Donna Blaszak

Argyle Secondary

3D Premier Elite Member

Day 2 - A Day of Many Wonders

Today is our first official day in China. It has been a day packed with sightseeing, eating interesting types of foods, and many other things. First we went to the winter palace, a big palace in the countryside somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. The winter palace is next to a hot spring, making pools at the winter palace nice and toasty. Yay for pools, which I would love to jump into right now! Anyway, the winter palace was a place where the emperors and empresses of the Tang dynasty went and lived for the winter. It was big and impressive. The most exciting part of going to the palace was all the people wanting to take pictures with us. There were lines of people lining up to take a picture with the white skinned wonders. I felt like a celebrity.

After the winter palace we went to a factory that made replicas of the Terra Cotta warriors. We got to see people making the mini replicas, so that all tourists can bring home with them a reincarnation of the 8th wonder of the world. Did you know that they are all made out of clay? Well, now you do. After seeing the replica warriors we got to go and see the real deal. There were 4 different pits with the warriors in them. Pit one was the biggest and contained more than any other . In Pit 1 we saw rows and rows of the warriors built to help their emperor in his afterlife. Many of the warriors were broken though, because the emperor’s people did not like his way of ruling. So they killed most of his “army”. How rebel they were.

After experiencing the 8th world wonder we continued on to the Quin ling underground palace. I don’t even know if that was a real palace, it seemed more like a touristy thing to me. Anyway, it wasn’t that interesting, because I don’t even remember that much about it. Lastly we went to the Xi’an City replica museum. It wasn’t that intriguing either, so I won’t say much about it. It was pretty much a small replica of Xi’an. Looking at this mini city I had a flashback to my memories of visiting Legoland (in California), where in it there were also city replicas. But of course China is much hotter and muggier then California. And no one looks at you like you are a sea monkey from outer space. After all of this adventure we went for dinner. This dinner is worth mentioning because we ate 18 different kinds of dumplings, including flavours like walnut, squid and red bean paste.

The last activity of the day was going to a fireworks and lights show. The lights in the show were very high tech and they displayed a story. But the story made no sense to us whatsoever, due to the fact that the characters were talking in Chinese. It was cool to see the interesting things that one can do with light.

All in all, today was long and jam packed, but I think we all learned more about the Chinese culture. And in these coming days we will learn much more.

Kia Van Laare
New Westminster Secondary
3D Premier Elite Member

Day 1 - Just Touched Down In China Town

We arrived in Beijing at 5:00pm which is 13 hours ahead of your time. The airplane ride was 12 hours long and seemed as though it was never going to end. Throughout the flight everyone watched movies or other things to try and keep themselves entertained which didn’t last long and we entered into complete boredom. Saraya, Alesha and I tried to pass the time by playing monopoly but we soon lost interest and I personally couldn’t take Saraya’s cheating anymore. The airline made sure we didn’t go hungry as they fed us four full meals during the flight. The food consisted of some westernized Chinese food which gave us just a small sample of the interesting food that was surely to come. Once at the airport we took our first bus to the next airport where we boarded our plane to Xi’an. We arrived there an hour later and met our tour guide Jeff. Driving down the streets is an experience of its own. Late at night the streets were packed with people just sitting there on the dirty sidewalks because it is too hot for them to be inside. The driving here is crazy and the roads have no stop signs or lights. People and cars share the roads and have to constantly dodge one another. We arrived at the hotel around 12 in the morning and it was nicer then I think most expected, but at that point we would have all been willing to sleep anywhere. Even though all the room numbers started with the number 8 it seemed as though luck and good fortune was not in our favour as Karalyn and I had quite the experience trying to get accustomed to our room. The hallways were dark and creepy that late at night and once in the room we eventually learnt that to turn on the lights we had to stick our key in the light switch. The beds in the room were hard and short but at least we had an actual toilet. Tomorrow we will be seeing the city of Xi’an and I am looking forward to the adventures still to come.

Elyse Matthews
Stelly's Secondary
3D Premier Elite Member

Blog Finally Here!

Hi all,

Sorry that we have not been able to post anything on the blog so far as we have not had access to the internet. We finally got it going so we will be posting messages on a regular basis. We are all doing very well. Hopefully everyone is well back at home.

Ramin