Nihao - 04.08

Nihao

-> Please click on Foto for more photos!!!

I am in Beijing!
I arrived on the Sunday with 3 other Atos Colleagues from Aachen and one other lady from Eindoven.
We had about 3 hours delay in Düsseldorf because our plane, which came from Mombasa, did not arrive on time for technical inspection.
Dirk mentioned that he had seen a mosquito and that sparked an uneasy feeling. Mombasa mosquitoes sure does ring bells!
In any case, the flight was very pleasant and we safely landed at Beijing Capital International Airport at around 11:30 AM.

The Airport is pretty huge and was a bit crowded.
The first group of Athletes we saw was the Russian Athletes amidst a very welcoming group of chinese Volunteers.

Our Pickup Guy was already waiting so all got into a Van and drove off towards the hotel. On his list, I noticed I was in a different hotel because on my invitation I was meant to be logging in the Yongan Hotel where most of the Atos colleagues were staying.
I later found out that I was moved to a different hotel (Chinese Peoples Palace) with 4 other guys because it was closer to our venue of work.

First Impressions
The weather was warm, sunny and quite humid.
Coming out of the Airport I noticed that every single pole on the streets have been well decorated with some olympic banners and there is an extensive promotion of the Beijing Games.

We got to the Chinese Peoples Palace around 2pm and it is indeed a very nice 4 Star Hotel.
The rooms are clean and it does really appeal to me. (I will send some fotos later)

The next thing we did was to rush to the BHQ to activate our accreditations.
The place was packed so it took about an hour to complete after which we left seeking for a good restaurant to still the hunger that was almost bursting into starvation.
I joined 6 other fellows and we ended up in a restaurant close to the Beach Volley Ball Venue.
The food was simply fantastic and we all were very impressed.

We took a long walk through the Sun Park after having dinner which left us all very exhausted.
At this point I had met Eric, a french guy who was also staying in the "Palace". We took a taxi together and went back to Palace.

I dragged myself to bed and hurriedly got up again! The bed felt so hard I thought they had probably forgotten the mattress. So I went to the check-in counter to ask if there was no mattress and I was told that was a normal bed.
So I went back a bit disappointed but surprisingly, I slept really, really good!!