Sometimes, things just don't fall into place. And that's OK.
Sunday I had plans to make my way up to the Yanquing district to see the men's downhill competition. This may seem like a simple task, but here in Beijing, it certainly wasn't that simple.
I booked a train ticket from Beijing to the Yanquing station and took two buses (one from my hotel to the media center, the other from the media center to the train station) in order to catch the 8 a.m. train, which arrived in Yanquing in less than a half-hour. The next step was a bus to a parking lot in the middle of nowhere, which is actually the Banquan Service Area, a rest stop along the highway. There, we got off the bus and awaited another bus, which took us to something called "Core Area 2." I guess they ran out of clever names for things when it got to naming this area.
Whatever the case may be, Core Area 2 is at the base of the Yanquing Alpine Resort, just below the Yanquing Olympic Village. We were expecting to take another bus from there to the finish of the speed races, but the volunteers at the bus stop told us to make our way up a few sets of stairs to the tram and take the tram.
So, on the tram we went. And truth be told, that was kind of cool. I recall taking a similar tram in Sochi from the mountains down into the valley. This one took us up to a midpoint station and then up further to the speed finish area. One of the guys I was riding with looked at the finish area as we came up from behind it over the hill and said it looked a lot like a Bond villain's lair. He wasn't wrong.
However, shortly after we got on the tram, the other guy we were riding with got a notification that the downhill had been delayed an hour. That hour turned into a couple of hours while I was working in the venue media center. With a train to catch, I headed out shortly before the race was postponed until the next day, but I arrived back at the Banquan Service Area and had to wait an hour for a bus to take me back to the train station and then the train ride and another bus ride back to the media center.
We calculated that the time from leaving the hotel to getting to the alpine media center was four hours. I didn't calculate on the way back, but it was probably similar. All of that for a race that didn't happen. Of course, that happens. I've driven to high school games that were cancelled and I've run into this issue at other Olympics. You can't control the weather and sometimes it just doesn't work out.
I did get a couple of stories written, which was good. I also got back in time to see a little curling action at the Ice Cube. So the day was not a complete loss.
But there was a lot of traveling. And I'm going to have to do it again soon.
This is what the alpine speed finish area looks like on approach from the tram. As my traveling partner said, kind of like a Bond villain's lair.
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