Zai jian Beijing

Goodbye Beijing. Sob, I loved the Olympics closing ceremony. Shades of Cirque du Soleil. Mr. Fix-it wants those giant circle bikes and jumping shoes. The ceremoney was beautiful, impressive, moving, fun. I really didn't need to hear Jackie Chan sing though, lol.

Although Mr. Fix-it enjoyed watching the Olympics, I'm sure he won't miss me singing along to the NBC Olympic theme music (dah daah da da da da da), correcting the commentators' pronunciation of Beijing (it's a hard j sound, Cris Collinsworth got it right), or the fist pumping every time there was mention of something the Chinese invented. I think I'll be a little quieter during the London games, actually, the Vancouver games, well, except for singing the Olympic theme music. :)

I was just thinking that in 1984, the Olympics were hosted by the United States in Los Angeles and I was in China, Beijing actually, watching what I could of the Olympics. This year, I'm in the US watching the Olympics from Beijing, China. Some sort of full circle thing going on here.

Let the games begin!

One of my favorite events started tonight, well, at least the network broadcast started tonight. I'll be glued to the TV until the closing ceremony. Times like this make me wish we had cable and Tivo so I could watch the Olympics live and also see more events. Ah well, maybe we'll dive into the modern age by the next Olympics.

Tonight's opening ceremony was full of symbolism and frankly, a little boring. Impressive technology, impressive coordination of thousands of people, impressive costumes (where did the money for all of this come from???), but overall, it was too slow. Nice fireworks though. What did you think?

Update:
Well, maybe I was just tired and bitchy when I posted the above because I went to bed during the parade of nations. I just finished watching the rest of the opening ceremony and as usual, I cried during the torch lighting. Now that's the sign of a successful opening ceremony! (no, I'm not being sarcastic)