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After all the hassle viewing the cycling road race, I didn't even try to go out to the Great Wall to see the time trial. Instead, I followed Fang (she was my "Chairman Mao" for the day) and we went for a bike ride ourselves. Near the subway, there was a bike rental station that consisted of a woman on a folding chair under an umbrella with a few sorry-looking one-speeds. We tried several of them and they were all heaps. Then a guy arrived on a three-wheeled truck-bike with several more rental bikes on the back. Finally they gave me a "new one" with the foam wrapping still on the frame and even it was barely acceptable, but worth the 30 cents an hour it cost to rent. I asked for a wrench to raise the seat, but they had no tools. So Fang borrowed a wrench from a nearby scooter shop and I pulled the seatpost out as far as it could safely go. It was still about two inches below my proper seat height, but at least my knees weren't hitting my chin anymore.
We set out on a quiet road along a little river, not unlike Sioux City's river trail, except it is in Beijing and therefore crowded with every type of two and three-wheeled vehicle (even the occasional four-wheeled one). We were headed toward the Fragrant Hills, but sections of the road getting there weren't very "fragrant" at all. One interesting sight along the way was pumpkins hanging from a trellis like grapes-they grow the vines over the metal frame then hang a plastic net around the pumpkins to support their weight as they grow--seems like a better system than growing them on the ground.
It took about an hour to pedal to Xianshan park, a place sacred to Buddhism with ornate temples and pagodas dispersed in a beautiful mountain setting. We first visited the Temple of the Clouds and saw beautiful statues of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and various immortals: some scary, some comforting, one with foot-long eyebrows. Many visitors buy prayer ribbons, write on their names, and tie them to something within the temple. These red ribbons with gold lettering were hanging everywhere. I hung two for myself: one wishing for successful work and the other for good health, wrote my name on them in Chinese (with Fang's help) and hung them to a tree inside the sanctuary. Does Buddha speak Chinese?
After the temple, Fang suggested that we climb to the top of "Incense Burner Peak." It looked like a quite a hike to me, but a sign said the top was less than two kilometers away, and Fang estimated that it would take about half an hour. Well, it was less than two kilometers, but it was very steep and very strenuous, especially in the heat and humidity of the day. I'm in pretty good shape for this kind of thing, but it was a challenge for me, and it just about killed Fang who had to stop several times to rest during the one and a half hour ascent. That said, we saw probably a hundred Chinese tackling the climb-of both genders and all ages. I seemed to be the only foreigner out there, although there had been some of American students from San Francisco in the temple who came up and asked me if I was here to compete in the Games.
After the long descent we stopped to eat noodles for lunch, and Susan called to say she had gotten beach volleyball tickets for tonight plus wrestling tickets for the next day. We jumped on the bikes and headed back immediately, but there was no time to take a shower before we set out for the Games. I just put on clean clothes (those I had on were pretty ripe) and we piled into a taxi to meet Yan Yan, a track and field teammate of Susan's from the days when she competed in China, who later became a fashion model and now has homes in both Los Angeles and Beijing. On the flight over from LA, she sat next to a member of the volleyball federation who gave her the tickets. He turned out be Singeon Smith, a famous ex-professional. We got to meet him during the session, and had a nice conversation about the integration of beach volleyball into the Olympic
Games.
Having finally gotten a ticket to a real event, we figured out why so many seats are empty. For Beach Volleyball, the session is 6 hours long with 12 different teams playing. You can't re-enter the arena once you leave. Few people come for the entire match, rather they come to see a particular country play, or they just watch for a couple of hours and then leave. Many seem to be employees of sponsoring corporations who aren't really into sports to begin with. We had to take off about halfway through the session to grab a quick dinner before making our way to the Bird's Nest so Susan could be interviewed by the News Hour with Jim Lehrer at 10:30. We finally made it back to the apartment just after midnight. We'll have to sleep fast because wrestling starts at 9:30 AM.
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