Saturday August 16th. Sunny at last! After a few days of rain and grey skies, the day is bright and shiny. A perfect day for the beach, or at least for beach volley. Beach volley is in Chaoyang Park, on the east side of the city. Since nothing is done by halves here and size does matter, Chaoyang is Beijing's largest urban park.
To the disapointment of my two male companions we were there for the Men's final 16s. Luckily the "beach girl" cheerleaders in white bikinis helped to alleviate their pain and use up lots of their camera memory.
Beach volley is a great spectator sport as undoubtedly the atmosphere absolutely rocks. Between the loud music, the girls dancing and the sand it has got a holiday feel to it and it seems as though the sea is never too far away. We got here to see US, Germany, Georgia and Netherlands win over Switzerland, China, Austria and Australia respectively.
Some highlights: the crowds cheering like crazy for Georgia, the stadium being reduced to 30% capacity as soon as the Chinese team got eliminated and the glorious sunshine. And lets not forget the cheerleaders. Bouncy, with different routines each time and fans, caps of ribons for jazzing up the technical stops and the timeouts.
Another highlight was the Ozzie kangaroo dressed spectator running up to the higher seats where a whole huge team of Dutch people dressed in their typical orange and blue took him in their midst - and did not beat the crap out of him - while their teams were thrashing it out in the court.
After a day of sports, we also had planned an evening of art. The venue was the National Centre for the arts in Tian An Men West. A magical, UFO-like structure surrounded by water and reflecting the colours of the sky. A very zen-like approach which is somewhat spoiled by the feel of airport departures that prevails inside. Crowds, security checks and a big wide tunnel under the lake make it look and feel like a terminal in the lost city of Atlantis.
I do not know why this performance was labeled as a multimedia musical drama. It was ballet at its best. Ballet on steroids. Improbable movements, amazing dancers, Bejart's "Mare Nostrum" on the Silk Road. I had forgotten that dance is supposed to be like this. That in this, the year of the Olympics, a dancer is still the most complete and perfect athlete and artist.
