Picked up pieces

Some picked up pieces as I sit in the media center the day after the Olympics ended, finishing up sending all the stuff for this week's papers before flying out early tomorrow morning.

The closing ceremonies were great. The good news was it wasn't as cold as it was during the opening ceremonies, or at least it felt that way. Things were wrapped up in a couple of hours, it was great to see the video preview of Milan-Cortina for the 2026 Winter Olympics and there was plenty of pomp and circumstance as the Olympic flame was extinguished and the Olympic flag was passed along from Beijing to Milan-Cortina. Those Italian Olympics are something I am really looking forward to in four years.

Without a doubt, the people that make the Olympics go are the volunteers and/or workers. They are everywhere, from running the bus depot in front of the Main Media Center to staffing the help desks inside, from cleaning seemingly everywhere, all the time to moving foot traffic in the right direction at all of the venues. They were all incredibly friendly and seemed to always be smiling (at least it seemed so, under their masks) and did their best to understand and work with the foreigners who have invaded their country. 

I noticed the other day that there were small pieces of tape of some kind on all of the fixtures in the bathroom in the Main Media Center. I noticed it again in the Olympic Stadium bathrooms as well and thought it was kind of weird. Then it hit me. The tape was placed over the logo for the company that built the fixtures since they weren't a sponsor of the Olympics. I learned that the same thing applied to the KFC in the Mountain Media Center. Evidently, there are KFC restaurants in the Olympic Villages that serve the athletes and officials, but the one in the media center was closed. That had to do with the sponsors, since KFC pours Pepsi products and Coke is a major Olympic sponsor. The restaurants in the villages sell Coke in bottles instead of the Pepsi products that normal KFCs sell.

It was weird to pull into the Main Media Center on the bus this morning and see the bus depot mostly empty. The place is usually packed with buses and people on a normal morning. With no contests going on, the buses to the venues aren't running and it's just the hotel buses. And with fewer people left working, even those buses are not running as frequently. In the same vein, the media center and the dining room are operating on limited hours. It's a sign that it's time to leave.

The hotel where I am staying definitely has some positives and negatives. First and foremost, the room is bigger than my room in the hotel in Tokyo and is quite comfortable. There is plenty of room to do work if needed. The hotel restaurant where we have our breakfast in the morning seems to have plenty of choices, both for sit-down and for room service. And as mentioned earlier, there are plenty of options for breakfast. The laundry service has also been good, with clothes returned pretty quickly. However, it seems that nobody at the desk speaks English, which makes things difficult when trying to communicate about anything. However, there are more positives than negatives in regards to the hotel.

The time is coming to an end here in Beijing. It has been an adventure, but the time is right to head home. Look for a little more analysis coming soon.

The KFC in the mountain media center has been closed the entire Olympics.