June 10: "wo ai taiyuan"
(The title photo is courtesy of Andrew)
Alright, here's what happened since last night: We were supposed to meet up with the U of California team this morning, who were meant to arrive in Beijing last night, and take the train together to Taiyuan. But as these kinds of trips and meticulous plans go, their flight was delayed due to mechanical malfunction, and they could not make it to Beijing on time. As of 9AM on Monday, June 10, they are still somewhere in the air, soon to land in Beijing in a few more hours. The Toronto team is also delayed, but they should have arrived at the Beijing airport by now.
Last night, the race organizers were scrambling to figure things out because it seems both teams have members who are traveling alone, who were meant to meet up with the team at the airport. Because of the delays, no one was certain where these extra team members were or how to reach them. I was helping to play translator last night to try to help find the Cali paddlers and coordinate new travel plans for this morning. At one point, we nearly hired a car to go to the airport to look for the lost Californians at 3AM. In the end, the race organizers decided that was too difficult and made alternative plans to locate them. Personally, I don't see why it would have been so difficult; just look for the dazed and confused, frosted tip-haired, orange sunglasses-wearing, muscle-bound surfer look-alikes wandering around the airport asking anyone not Chinese, "Duuude, do you like totally speak English, bro? Hella." B-D
Anyway, the result of all these travel cock-ups is that we've adopted a few California paddlers this morning, who made it from the airport to the Railway Hotel, and they will be joining us for the train ride to Taiyuan. Meet (from right to left) Andrew Perez, Chris Espino, and Fred Au.
Alright, here's what happened since last night: We were supposed to meet up with the U of California team this morning, who were meant to arrive in Beijing last night, and take the train together to Taiyuan. But as these kinds of trips and meticulous plans go, their flight was delayed due to mechanical malfunction, and they could not make it to Beijing on time. As of 9AM on Monday, June 10, they are still somewhere in the air, soon to land in Beijing in a few more hours. The Toronto team is also delayed, but they should have arrived at the Beijing airport by now.
Last night, the race organizers were scrambling to figure things out because it seems both teams have members who are traveling alone, who were meant to meet up with the team at the airport. Because of the delays, no one was certain where these extra team members were or how to reach them. I was helping to play translator last night to try to help find the Cali paddlers and coordinate new travel plans for this morning. At one point, we nearly hired a car to go to the airport to look for the lost Californians at 3AM. In the end, the race organizers decided that was too difficult and made alternative plans to locate them. Personally, I don't see why it would have been so difficult; just look for the dazed and confused, frosted tip-haired, orange sunglasses-wearing, muscle-bound surfer look-alikes wandering around the airport asking anyone not Chinese, "Duuude, do you like totally speak English, bro? Hella." B-D
Anyway, the result of all these travel cock-ups is that we've adopted a few California paddlers this morning, who made it from the airport to the Railway Hotel, and they will be joining us for the train ride to Taiyuan. Meet (from right to left) Andrew Perez, Chris Espino, and Fred Au.
Andrew committed to paddle with our team before coming to China as we needed one more guy to fill out our team. So technically, he's part of TEAM HARVARD, not Team California. Fred Au has arms that are as big at my legs, and for those of you who know me... yeah, enough said. Finally, Chris. He wears very deep V-neck shirts. Okay, moving on... As we set off from Beijing, it seems that Cali and Toronto are going to get picked up from the airport together by a charter bus and driven to Taiyuan. The trip for us by high-speed train takes 3 hours. I can't even begin to imagine what Cali and Toronto are about to endure on a bus with traffic from Beijing to Taiyuan... GOOD LUCK GUYS! STAY ALIVE!!!
Here are some photos from the trip to Taiyuan.
Here are some photos from the trip to Taiyuan.
We started lining up for the train early, about 30 minutes before the gate opened, because as you're about to see, Chinese queuing is some serious business. If you don't get up front early, the masses will spit you right out the back.
We've noticed throughout the trip that Alex has a tendency to disappear. As such, "Where's Alex?" has become a bit of a comical mantra for our team. While standing in line, we again wondered where Alex had gone, which inspired Johnny to take the following photo is this spin-off of Where's Waldo.
where's alex?
can you find him in the crowd?
Solution:
I really wish I had more exciting photos from the train to show, but these are honestly the best I've got.
We were met at the Taiyuan Train Station by our team liaison Will Tian. He had a sign outside that read, "IT'S ABOUT TO GET AWESOME." We then loaded up two cargo vans and headed to our hotel.
After checking in and a super quick dinner, Tracie and I headed to the coaches meeting, where we learned about the schedule and procedures of the festival races. The ICDBF Taiyuan Festival uses 10-man boats (excluding
drummer and steersman) and covers race distances of 200m, 500m, and 2000m in
Mixed, Men’s, and Women’s Divisions. Teams are further divided to compete in
either the Taiyuan Cup or the Dragon City Cup for each race distance and
division. After drawing cards to determine our heats, our team is registered to compete for the Dragon City Cup in the
Mixed Division 200m and 2000m races and for the Taiyuan Cup in the Mixed
Division 500m race.
Meanwhile, the rest of the team was doing this at a local bar...
After everyone returned to the hotel, we concluded the long day with a team meeting to go over the information learned at the coaches meeting. Tomorrow would be our first all team practice, so we went over a brief practice outline. Time to get serious! The festival is about to begin!!!
The following is the festival schedule:
June 11: Team practices in the afternoon
June 12: Opening Ceremony / 200m heat & final / 500m heat & final
June 13: 2000m race / Awards ceremony and closing banquet
*** I bumped into Dr. Chen and Mike, two patrons of the California team, on the elevator going to the coaches meeting, and I asked them if they knew when the California and Toronto teams would be arriving? Dr. Chen and Mike looked at each other for a second, and then Mike answered, "Sometime in the next 24 hours." O_O Semper fi, guys.
The following is the festival schedule:
June 11: Team practices in the afternoon
June 12: Opening Ceremony / 200m heat & final / 500m heat & final
June 13: 2000m race / Awards ceremony and closing banquet
*** I bumped into Dr. Chen and Mike, two patrons of the California team, on the elevator going to the coaches meeting, and I asked them if they knew when the California and Toronto teams would be arriving? Dr. Chen and Mike looked at each other for a second, and then Mike answered, "Sometime in the next 24 hours." O_O Semper fi, guys.
Today's Numbers:
Total paddlers traveling on the 1:50PM train to Taiyuan: 12
Hours on high-speed train from Beijing to Taiyuan: 3
Playing cards flipped at the coaches meeting to pick our heats: 12
Glowing foam sticks my roommate Johnny came back with tonight: 3
Girls Alex apparently tried to pick up at the bar tonight: 4
Breakfast hours tomorrow morning: 5:30-7:30AM
Total paddlers traveling on the 1:50PM train to Taiyuan: 12
Hours on high-speed train from Beijing to Taiyuan: 3
Playing cards flipped at the coaches meeting to pick our heats: 12
Glowing foam sticks my roommate Johnny came back with tonight: 3
Girls Alex apparently tried to pick up at the bar tonight: 4
Breakfast hours tomorrow morning: 5:30-7:30AM