day 4 - olympic stadium - 20.08

In order to get to the stadium everybody had to pass very strict security check. Of course you needed to have a ticket to one of the events in the area to be let through. Security check was much more thorough than at the aiports. Naturally there were metal detectors but besides that they went through everybody's bag, they literally took everything out and laid it on the table. In my bag I had a my tiny laptop - this I needed to power on, he was following the power on process and let me shut it down only after the operating system came up. I also had a camera - with this i needed to take a photo and show them that it really was a camera, not just the shell. Any food and drink was taken away, any other liquid one had needed to be demonstrated - for an example i had hand sanitizing liquid which i needed to use in front of them. Chewing gum packages were also interesting to them and they did not quite understand what that was until i showed them how to "use it" :)

The lines to access the stadium were loong, it took easily 45 minutes to get through. Stadium area consisted also the ever so beautiful and fancy aquatic center. Didn't get close to that though as it was fenced off again, even withing this hyper-super-duper secure area. Aquatic center was illuminated and it changed colors, it was beautiful :) Also the park around in the olympic stadium/complex area was wonderful - clean and friendly.

Now the stadium :) We had tickets to the evening session that started at 19:00 - we got there around 20:10. Our seats were pretty much under the roof, meaning very high up, but that was ok even. Just to sit at the stadium made our mouths drop open. It was huuuuge :) I've been to some huge sports arenas, but this was easily 10 times bigger than what i have ever seen before. There were some other Estonian sitting by us, chatted with them a bit and all I heard was of how bad their living conditions are and how badly it is all organized by the Estonian travel agency. Oh I'm so glad we are doing our own thing - at least we know what we are getting and what we are paying for. Back to the stadium - the construction was magnificent, it was all just so nice and fancy. China has done a great job with the buildings - they really are all that olympic buildings should be.

Events that we had the honor to witness were:
- women's 200m run semifinals
- men's 200m finals
- women's 400m hurdles finals
- women's hammer throw finals
- men's 100m hurdles semifinals (or was that finals too? can't remember)
Most importantly though - we got to see men's discus awards ceremony :D That was wonderful. Yeah we missed the event totally and we missed the chance to congratulate him in person, but we were there for the awards giving :D YAY!

Once and a while we are doing a reality check with Riina: "Hei, guess what? We are in China, watching the Olympic events live :D" the smiles on our faces are widest ever :D