My friend, Laura, was diving in Beijing the last few days at the World Cup. I didn't think I'd be able to make it, but my wonderful husband let me go to Beijing and spend some time with her! It was really such a great time. She is an incredible diver and I am in awe of not only her ability to dive from 10 Meters up, but also her testimony to the diving world. She loves the Lord and is a real encouragement to other divers. She and I did gymnastics together, ions ago and now we are friends again with both her and her husband.
I also got to have one of the first peeks at the new Olympic stadium. It was beautiful. Here's the inside of it. The whole thing is made to look like bubbles. It's a steel structure with these pockets of this plastic stuff. They are filled with air. So the entire structure is flexible and even bouncy. It's supposed to hold up well in storms and is some kind of cutting edge technology. I don't know what it is exactly, but it looks really amazing.
This is the diving well. You can see the ceiling looks like bubbles. There's even a diver in mid flight on the spring board.
Here's Kesed cheering on the Chinese divers. Here he is chanting "Jia You!" (that's what all the fans say at sporting events. It literally means "add oil", but means "go, go, go")
This is the stadium at night. They can also make it red or green or yellow. In the above picture, behind the "Water Cube" is the "Bird's Nest". This is the other stadium for outdoor events. Both stadiums are beautiful. I spent a few taxi rides helping the drivers with their English. They are supposed to be learning it for the games, but I found not a one that could speak it.
One funny thing they did was take the tickets according to gender. They made the women go into one line for security and men in another. I'm not sure if it will be that way for the Olympics-I'm hoping not.
