My Rockstar Moment

For the opening ceremony day, I decided to dress up. I met David, an Aussie, who had his face painted and I could not help but follow his suit. Dave and I set off to wander the streets with our painted faces and in no time, we had created a mob scene. Dave even brought a fake torch and we started to chant "Go China" in Chinese. Everyone yelled with us and wanted to take our photo. I felt like a total rockstar! The police kept asking us to move because we kept creating a crowd and they didn't like that.

At one point, we stood on a platform and chanted “Go China”. Hundreds of Chinese joined in and chanted with us. I have never seen such a phenomenon. I even videotaped a bit, but unfortunately, Snowball can not translate my video. I will have to upload it another time. Upon seeing the police call us in, we left as the police van drove up to our site.


When we returned to the hostel, many others had joined us in the face paint. We had started a trend and the Brits made it even better with flags. Thankfully, Tom picked up an American flag for me while I was gone. When I put on the American flag, I suddenly felt like a superhero. We took our capes and hit the streets as a big superhero gang. We created an uproar and the Chinese loved it! We stopped for pictures along the way, and I realized this is what it must be like to be famous. Cameras could not stop capturing our photo and I almost went blind from all the flashes. Even the Americans wanted to take photos of me. We then went off in search of a place to watch the ceremony.




We did not have a real strategy of where we were going to watch the ceremony. We started at Tiananmen , and then headed to a park to see the ceremony on a big screen outside. After reaching the park, we decided to go back to Tiananmen where the action was suppose to be. Unfortunately, the police had quarantined the entire area and we could not get through. Hundreds of police lined the streets and moved the crowd farther and farther away from Tiananmen. We talked our way through a couple of police points, but eventually split up. The fireworks never happened when we thought they would and so we headed back. Cora, an American, and I had to convince the police to let us back across the police barricades to our hostel. We eventually convinced them and even received a personal police escort. We eventually met up with our friends and are watching the ceremony in the hostel. We will go out again after the ceremony and party it up with the millions of Chinese. The night is young.