Ever since we knew we were moving to China Joe has been watching the internet for an opportunity to buy Olympic tickets. Our goal was gold medal baseball; that being, of course, our favorite pastime sport forever!
After our arrival in Chengdu we started getting closer to our dream, engaging in furious negotiations with various sellers on Craig’s List. Yes, they have Craig’s List in China. We secured gold medal tickets a couple of weeks ago and began making our travel arrangements to Beijing. Hotel rates in Beijing were outrageous (over $1,000.00 a night) so we booked at the Renaissance in Tianjin, about two hours from Beijing. We planned to ride the new bullet train to Beijing (about a 40 minute ride).
Our journey began last Friday morning with our flight to Tianjin. Tianjin is a beautiful city. The architecture is very European (I kept wondering where all the Chinese buildings were) and if you didn’t know you were in China, you would think you were walking the streets of some European city. Joe said Airbus is planning a factory here but at present there is very little notice of Westerner presence. There aren’t as many cars on the streets but all in all the city is very clean and new looking which is unusual since it has been around for hundreds of years. Tianjin hosted Olympic soccer and the Olympic presence was everywhere.
After checking into the hotel we went to the train station to get tickets to Beijing. Our plan was to go to Beijing for the rest of the day and try to get tickets to an event. The Tianjin train station looks like a brand new modern facility and was a total madhouse! I actually think this is where all the people were since there didn’t seem to be that many on the streets. We failed to find anyone who spoke even a small amount of English and were glad we had the hotel write down our request for two tickets on the bullet train to Beijing. Unfortunately, everyone seemed to be going to Beijing and the trains were sold out for Friday. We made our way back to the hotel and got the assistance of the Business Center to try to secure us train tickets out first thing Saturday morning.
Wouldn’t you know that was a bust too – sold out for Saturday morning! Joe went to the Business Center to figure out a Plan B. We were able to secure a driver to take us to Beijing the next morning and stay with us all day long for whatever we needed plus the return in the evening to Tianjin. The drive would take about two hours and we were ready!
On Friday night we were monitoring the USA/Cuba baseball game. We had a chance to get some Bronze medal game tickets on Saturday morning. If USA beat Cuba we would try for some other event but if the US lost we definitely wanted to go to the Bronze medal game. Joe was on the phone with a guy in between updates on the game negotiating the price of the tickets down. When it became obvious that the US would be in the Bronze medal game we secured the tickets.
Our Olympic Experience was set! Leave Tianjin at 7:30 AM, meet to pick up and purchase the tickets for both the Bronze (USA vs. Japan) and Gold (Cuba vs. Korea) medal games at 10:00 AM, Bronze medal game at 10:30 AM and Gold medal game at 6:00 PM! Can life get any better?
Plane tickets – RMB 4,000 (for 2)
Hotel – RMB 1100/night
Driver for the day – RMB 1,000
To be continued . . .
After our arrival in Chengdu we started getting closer to our dream, engaging in furious negotiations with various sellers on Craig’s List. Yes, they have Craig’s List in China. We secured gold medal tickets a couple of weeks ago and began making our travel arrangements to Beijing. Hotel rates in Beijing were outrageous (over $1,000.00 a night) so we booked at the Renaissance in Tianjin, about two hours from Beijing. We planned to ride the new bullet train to Beijing (about a 40 minute ride).
Our journey began last Friday morning with our flight to Tianjin. Tianjin is a beautiful city. The architecture is very European (I kept wondering where all the Chinese buildings were) and if you didn’t know you were in China, you would think you were walking the streets of some European city. Joe said Airbus is planning a factory here but at present there is very little notice of Westerner presence. There aren’t as many cars on the streets but all in all the city is very clean and new looking which is unusual since it has been around for hundreds of years. Tianjin hosted Olympic soccer and the Olympic presence was everywhere.
After checking into the hotel we went to the train station to get tickets to Beijing. Our plan was to go to Beijing for the rest of the day and try to get tickets to an event. The Tianjin train station looks like a brand new modern facility and was a total madhouse! I actually think this is where all the people were since there didn’t seem to be that many on the streets. We failed to find anyone who spoke even a small amount of English and were glad we had the hotel write down our request for two tickets on the bullet train to Beijing. Unfortunately, everyone seemed to be going to Beijing and the trains were sold out for Friday. We made our way back to the hotel and got the assistance of the Business Center to try to secure us train tickets out first thing Saturday morning.
Wouldn’t you know that was a bust too – sold out for Saturday morning! Joe went to the Business Center to figure out a Plan B. We were able to secure a driver to take us to Beijing the next morning and stay with us all day long for whatever we needed plus the return in the evening to Tianjin. The drive would take about two hours and we were ready!
On Friday night we were monitoring the USA/Cuba baseball game. We had a chance to get some Bronze medal game tickets on Saturday morning. If USA beat Cuba we would try for some other event but if the US lost we definitely wanted to go to the Bronze medal game. Joe was on the phone with a guy in between updates on the game negotiating the price of the tickets down. When it became obvious that the US would be in the Bronze medal game we secured the tickets.
Our Olympic Experience was set! Leave Tianjin at 7:30 AM, meet to pick up and purchase the tickets for both the Bronze (USA vs. Japan) and Gold (Cuba vs. Korea) medal games at 10:00 AM, Bronze medal game at 10:30 AM and Gold medal game at 6:00 PM! Can life get any better?
Plane tickets – RMB 4,000 (for 2)
Hotel – RMB 1100/night
Driver for the day – RMB 1,000
To be continued . . .
1 comment:
Way to leave us hanging, Kimi! Can't wait to hear more. :)
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