Denis and Anna at the Olympics

It's starting to be a yearly tradition of meeting Denis and Anna in China. I first met them by chance on Hua Shan near Xian in 2006. I asked them to help me film a mock Verizon commercial, "Can you hear me now?". Last year we met in Jiuzhaigou in Sichuan. Now this year, we meet again at the Olympics. These guys are some of the best people I've met on this trip. I've gone on to introduce them to my parents and any of my friends that happen to wander through Hong Kong. Anna even went to San Francisco last year to meet up with my friend Steve. I love people that are so relaxed that they can get along with just about anyone. I have friends of all different types and personalities and I love it when I can introduce two of them and it's like they are old friends too.

Original Peking Duck

Anna's claim to fame is her ability to know or find the best restaurants in any city for any particular kind of food. Whenever I'm with them, I let them do pretty much all of the ordering and I have yet to be disappointed by what comes. We went to a brand new section of Beijing near Qianmen where they tore down the entire old hutong district to build a massive pedestrian street mall. It's quite beautiful unless you were there a couple years ago and know what this sterile shopping mall had replaced. In the right light that night, the place looked very much like the inside of the Venetian with it's fake blue sky. The biggest problem is that someone dropped the ball big time and didn't get the shops open in time for the Olympics. This mile long pedestrian strip had only 2 shops open, the original Peking Duck restaurant and an empty pharmacy. Another developer that spent far less money refurbishing the hutongs benefited greatly by this blunder as all the business funneled from Qianmen into this little alley full of tourist shops and restaurants.

Anna at the Duck

After dinner, I started to remember the alley as I had stayed at Leo Hostel a couple years back. Then I saw Leo's and was happy to see that it survived the reconstruction project. They were charging 200Y instead of the 20Y 2 years ago for a dorm room, but at least they didn't succumb to the new development. Down this same alley, I found my new "North Face" backpack. They started at a ridiculous price of 850Y claiming that the bag was real. I know they cracked down on fakes and DVDs in Beijing before the Olympics, but I still didn't believe the bag was a real North Face. With Anna's "help", I got them down to 70Y, but I still think I paid about 20Y too much. It's crazy that I got them down to under 1/10th of their starting price and I still feel like I got ripped off. I just hope that this one lasts as long as the one I got in Shanghai 2 years ago.

Venetian or Qian Men Hutong

On a final note, I have to give credit where credit is due. I had my doubts about the air pollution, traffic conditions and the general readiness of China to host the Olympic games. But after being here for 2 weeks, I have to say that they did an absolutely incredible job of making everyone from all around the world feel at home in their capital city. They finished 2 new subway lines to make getting to the Olympic green easier. They added an Airport Express subway line that gets you to downtown in less than 30 minutes. China Mobile has a service that you can call for information and translation services. Just about everywhere I went, 1 of the 1.5 million volunteers dressed in their excellent volunteer outfits provided by Adidas were just around the corner to help me get to where I needed to go. I think even if you didn't speak any Mandarin at all, you would have found getting around the city and to the events very easy. Congratulations on an Excellent Olympic Games, Beijing and China.

Emply Pharmacy