Home away from Home

We have now been in the Athlete’s Village for a few days and are learning the lay-out and where all of the necessities are!

Here’s a description of what’s in and around our new home:

We stay with all of the Canadian team (including all sports) at C-1, which is 3 towers of small apartments (sadly without fridges or any kind of kitchen).  Our BC3 team shares an apartment – each athlete with their sport assistant has a room; there are 2 bathrooms both with roll-in showers.  Other important parts of the Canadian towers are the Athlete’s Lounge which is stocked with all of the comforts of home (like Bugles) and a therapy room for the doctors and physiotherapists who work with the Canadian team.

Across the street is a super residence centre (one of three in the village) where there are computers, wireless internet access, arcade games, a business centre and big screen TVs.

The shuttle busses to the venues are a 3 minute walk away and the cafeteria is right next to that.  In the cafeteria there are a number of food choices which change for each meal – the highlight so far is the Beijing Duck – crispy duck wrapped in a ‘wheat’ or ‘rice’ wrap (according to the 20 Chinese people that Paul tried to get an answer out of!).  What is important to understand is that the cafeteria is open 24 hours a day for us to eat whatever we want… talk about temptation!  Soon a McDonald’s will be opening which I’m sure will be a large attraction for some!  The games have not yet started so not all of the teams and countries have arrived in the Village, which means that some food options are not available at the moment.

One of our favourite places to visit and explore is the ‘International Zone’ – where there are a number of shops and services.  There is a BOCOG (Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee) store where you can buy lots of souvenirs, a general store where I bought a hair dryer, a photo store, dry cleaning, a hair salon where you can get free hair cuts, a pin trading shop, a newsstand, a florist, and many other vital services.

We went yesterday to go to the Chinese tea shop, and entered a not at all traditional looking café with plastic coloured tea pots as decor, assuming that this was the right place.  We had a variety of hot drinks and cookies, and were all disappointed at the lack of tea choice and the lack of tradition.  After this we went for a walk around and passed this same café again only to look next door and see a beautiful looking setting with bridges and flowers and nice wooden tables… looking more closely there was the sign that said ‘Chinese Teahouse’ – something to look forward to later.

There is also an Entertainment Zone, which has pool, fuseball, air hockey and other games, as well as DVD rooms, an area for bands or as we saw last night karaoke!  None of us were brave enough to try but there was an athlete from China who was very into it.  In this building there is also an outdoor pool, and a fitness centre.

The most amazing part of the village is just how beautiful it is, there are beautiful ponds, bridges, and landscaping… making it all feel very much like a town and like home away from home.

There are also boring but much needed things like laundry nearby.  The only drawback there is that it is all washed in the mesh bag that we are given (we have 2 – one for ‘light’ colours and one for ‘deep’ colours… but when we pull it all out of the bags it is all wrinkly.  I guess you can’t have everything and wrinkled clothes aren’t a bad price to pay!

In the next edition we’ll talk more about the boccia venue and what we know about our competition, as well as, of course, a detailed description of the traditional Chinese tea!

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