Yesterday was a very long day. It’s always a bit harder for me to travel with a team than when I’m on my own. It takes quite a bit of patience, as I’m so use to doing my own thing. We finally made it to Hong Kong where we were informed that myself and another staff member from SASCOC would be on an earlier flight. I got really concerned as our entire luggage was suppose to be in one container and now they were going to take things out and I could just see my equipment getting lost. We got on the plane and as I stared out of the window a truck droved up to the plane and I saw them load ALL my equipment onto the plane! The really amazing thing about this was that our luggage tags only said Hong Kong so how they were able to get all my stuff out of the team container and to our plane rally blows my mind. I can’t imagine the guys at Johannesburg ever being this efficient!

So we got to Beijing with the rest of the team supposedly 2 hours behind us so we had to wait for them. 5 Hours later they showed up! Apparently they had some accreditation problems with some of the team members and needed some time to clear passport control.

We got to the village at around 21:30 and what a village we have!! For the first time I can honestly say we got a village that is better than the one we had in 1992 for the Barcelona games. The Chinese truly went the extra mile on this one and this place is truly exceptional. Unlike Athens the village was truly ‘finished’ some time ago and the gardens are beautifully landscaped in Zen style. They have rock playing music!!

After staying here for one day I can honestly say that the food is GOOD! I can see a few of our team member already giving in to the temptations, as there is chocolate and ice cream on every corner. I’m doing my best to stick to my diet and to keep the weight off that I had lost in the last couple of weeks.

Went for a ride today around the ‘Birds nest’ and the ‘Cube’ just to loosen up a bit. The weather today has been really nice with mild temperatures and low humidity so I’m hoping that it’s going to stay like this. Tomorrow I’m heading out to the road circuit tomorrow to finally judge for the course for myself and I’m really looking forward to it!