People In Beijing Watch the Opening Ceremonies Just Like You: On TV

I spent about three hours on Friday trying to get as close to the Bird's Nest in Beijing to get an up close look of the opening ceremonies. We had hoped to find an outdoor area nearby -- maybe a park? -- with a TV screen of sorts so we could catch a glimpse of the pageantry on TV as well as the fireworks above the stadium.

That mission was a failure but it didn't stop us from enjoying the festivities. A recap of our attempt after the jump.Getting a taxi driver to go anywhere near the general viscinity of the Bird's Nest proved to be a challeng in itself. We switched cabs once and finally found someone who dropped us off close as physically allowable by the Chinese police -- which is to say about 20 blocks away.

Also, walking on the sidewalk was not allowed. One of these nice police officers kindly asked my friend Chris (pictured) to get off the sidewalk and walk in the street. Makes sense.

Finally we went into the subway and popped out somewhere with a big crowd being ushered into security lines. We had no luck with those security lines as you needed to have a ticket which we of course did not.

There shuttle buses taking people somewhere so we figured we'd give that a shot.

So the shuttle bus actually brought us about as close to the Bird's Nest as we got the entire day. But we were on a bus.

That dropped us off at another security area where workers with loud megaphones were loudly shouting instructions to the crowd... in Chinese. It seemed at this point as if we were the only people in this area without tickets.

So there was no park, no big TV, etc., and we couldnt find a good location to watch from anywhere. Imagine the South Philly Sports complex but you couldn't actually get anywhere near the venue and tailgaiting wasn't an option. Parking lots aren't exactly fun. We did get to see some surface to air missiles though. (More on that in a later post)

This was the best view got.


Finally we try to find a bar or restaurant nearby which proved a challenge. Nothing within a 10-20 block radius was even OPEN. (Except Starbucks of course.)

So after about 2.5 hours and a caramel frapacino we deem the complex near the Nest impenetrable and a televesion screen in a park nonexistent. After texting some interns from NBC that my buddy knew who had been in China for over a week, we decide to take a taxi to a bar they said would be a good spot to get some food and a view of the ceremonies on TV. It was our best shot.

The bar ended up being rather festive with seating in high demand.

It was a nice mix of travelers from around the world and the locals. This guy (below) was the most excitied and helped lead the whole room in some Chinese chant when Yao Ming and co. brought their flag out.


There was also a British contingent that was quite vocal and friendly as well. One Brit tried to get our group of 8 Americans to sing "American Pie."

After taxis, metros, shuttle buses, security, and Starbucks, we ended up watching the Opening Ceremonies just like you will: on a TV while eating some chicken wings and nachos. Only problem was, our telecast was in Chinese.