the chostar life

Beijing 2008 Olympic Vacation

2008-08-17T09:20:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: This post is REALLY long. Enjoy!

I have just returned from my two week trip to Beijing, China for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. I attempted to maintain a daily journal during my trip to summarize my activities in

China

so I will try to recap my trip with photos in this blog entry.

July 31, 2008 - Thursday

Actually this is the day before day 1 of China. So I purchased a digital camera a few days before I left for Beijing. It kind of sucks because I don’t really like carrying around a digital camera and taking pictures (this will change during this post). When I had a digital camera before, I never used it. However, I felt it was necessary to get one because being in Beijing for the Olympics kind of seemed like a big deal. Along with the digicam, I got a nice 8gb memory card. Oh, the joy begins. On my last night in the states before going off to China, I got together with my brother and a few friends for dinner and a night of heavy drinking.

Look how happy they are to see me go

Let’s do this.

It’s been done.

Asian fobstyle…PEASSUUHHHHH….

I felt kind of bad because everybody had to go to work on Friday, but it’s their fault for not listening to my suggestion to them to call in sick, haha.

August 1-2 2008 – Friday-Saturday

And off to China I go hungover on Friday. I arrived in Beijing on August 2nd after a nice flight on China Air, or so I thought (which will change during this post). Upon arrival in Beijing at around 6pm, I got picked up by Roger’s driver, ate dinner at his pad and just crashed early. His parents’ place is reallllllll nice:

A shot inside the new Beijing International Airport.

Hallways of Roger’s Condo

My room and bathroom

The view outside my room window

The living room

The library and gaming room

The Dining Room

Roger in the kitchen preppin’ some breakfast. This guy did a good job trying to be a good host by making breakfast for me for the first few days. After awhile, he got lazy….or we just got too drunk and couldn’t wake up in time for breakfast. You choose.

August 3, 2008 – Sunday

Roger and I woke up at 6am due to jetlag and went to the gym. Then, we went to the Great Wall. After an hour drive to the Mutianyu Great Wall, we took a cable car from the parking lot to the top of the “mountain” where the wall is. We hiked on the Great Wall for about 3.5 hours. The wall was truly amazing and the scenery was beautiful around the wall. Although the hike was really exhausting due to the grueling heat, Roger and I made it to highest peak of the Mutianyu Great Wall, at which point the wall was discontinued due to reconstruction. In summary, the Great Wall was simply breathtaking and it was easily one of my favorite parts of the trip.

Kickin it on Roger’s balcony before the Great Wall.

Roger analyzing how we are going to conquer the Wall.

Street merchants at the Great Wall. This was my first experience dealing with Chinese merchants (more encounters will follow during this post). Now I’ve heard of people bargaining with merchants in China but I never understood to what extent the bargaining occurred. As soon as we started heading towards the parking lot to meet our driver after climbing the Wall, we got ambushed by like 20 Chinese merchants on the side of the street. It didn’t help that I wanted to stop and look around at the souvenirs because I wanted to be a true tourist and buy a “I climbed the Great Wall” shirt.

Now, Roger can speak Chinese and he kind of knows what to expect in China when bargaining with these merchants. I, on the other hand, have no idea what the hell to do because I can’t communicate with these merchants. Sure I can say “lower” or “too expensive” but those are common bargaining words that most Western tourists learn to use when bargaining in China. These merchants are too smart for the Westerners tricks though…

I saw a shirt I liked and this is how the conversation with the merchant went down:

Me: (pointing at shirt), how much?

Chinese lady: You like?

Me: Yes

Chinese lady: 100 (RMB)

Me: Too expensive.

Chinese lady: Ok give me your best price.

Me: Ok, 50. (Bad mistake by me naming a price)

Chinese lady: You crazy! You killing me! This is good quality! Give me better price. (She hands me a notepad and a pen)

Me: (I write down 20)

Chinese lady: 30

And finally we agree on 25 for a Great Wall t-shirt. Looking back now, there was way too much effort exerted to purchase one t-shirt (little did I know there would be more bargaining to come in the upcoming weeks). After I got the t-shirt, Roger gave me this real disappointing look. You gotta understand that at this point I’m kind of happy because I bought a souvenir t-shirt (which I’ll probably never wear but nonetheless it’s a souvenir) for about $4 USD. But then he was explaining how we could have gotten the shirt for less, like $2 USD. This was the beginning of Aaron Cho becoming ultra-cheap in China.

Below are some pictures from the Great Wall:

The cable car to the top!

Me ready to conquer the Great Wall.

Rog is ready to dominate this Wall.

As am I.

It’s pretty Great, isn’t it?

Reflecting

It never ends.

By the way, Roger doesn’t like taking pictures of anything. I wanted pictures with everything.

The steepest portion of the Mutianyu Great Wall. Rog is ready to conquer it.

REAL tired after climbing the wall for about 2 hours here.

Our progress towards the top.

Rog is suffering, he can’t make it...HAHA

The steepness of the Wall towards the top.

Almost there.

We made it…what an amazing view.

The Wall in ruins.

The mountains around the Great Wall.

The other side of the Wall at Mutianyu which we decided not to hike.

After hiking the Great Wall, we went to a real nice massage parlor with Roger’s folks. I got my first ever foot massage, which lasted nearly 2 hours and it felt extremely good and was real relaxing.

After the massage, we walked around the Sanlitun shopping center area which included a pearl market called YaShow. Pearl markets are basically swap meets with a ton of fake stuff where all the bargaining occurs in Beijing. We ate some solid hot pot there and I saw a lot of pairs of fake Jordans which I wanted to purchase. Disappointingly, I didn’t have the cash available at the time but I promised the young Chinese merchant ladies that I’d be back to get them (I never did.)

Chinese Starbucks

Wow, this guy is unreal.

The Olympic slogan was all over Beijing.

No trumpets please.

HOT POT. The server was pretty cute (not photographed here.)

After dinner and shopping, we went out to the bar area of Sanlitun, which is the most popular tourist area in Beijing for nightlife.

A shot of Sanlitun.

One of the many bars in Sanlitun that have a Chinese band playing live music. Pretty funny stuff.

To top off the night, we got lost in Beijing because Roger didn’t know how to get home. He was pretty pissed at me because I was laughing at the fact that he had no idea where he lived. We got dropped off by a taxi cab driver literally 1 street next to our house and still had no idea where the hell we were. We then got into another cab driver and tried to tell him where we lived and he looked at us with the most ridiculous “are you guys retarded?” face. Maybe because he stepped on the gas pedal for about 5 seconds covering a distance of about 50 feet before he dropped us off at our destination. Wow, did we feel stupid.

Chinese phrase of the day:

“CHAOYOUNG QUONGREN NEMURRRR!”

Translation: Chaoyoung Park South Gate (where we lived and the directions we would tell the cab driver). I just always said it with a real funny Chinese accent because I thought it sounded funny.

All in all, our first real day in Beijing was very eventful.

August 4, 2008 – Monday

We woke up real tired and exhausted from the pervious day. Hungover, we walked around Chaoyoung Park which is the park across the street from Roger’s pad.

Chinese men doing tai-chi.

Still super tired after walking off our hangover at the park, we had to run some errands. We went to the police station to declare our temporary residence, we got a phone card for our temporary phone in Beijing, and I went to the bank to exchange some USD to RMB.

And….off to tourist sightseeing attraction #2: the Temple of Heaven! Oops, our driver incorrectly understood Roger’s mom and he took us to the Temple of the Sun God instead.

This place kind of sucked so we bounced and we went to another Pearl Market (pronounced ShoSuew?) where we shopped at did a little more bargaining with some Chinese merchants. In the end, I purchased 3 fake Ralph Lauren polo shirts for about $20 USD total. Solid.

The Chinese burrito we ate at the Pearl Market. Yummy.

The Pearl Market.

WTF?

A sign next to the elevator. Initially I thought it was some kind of “Emergency? Call 911” type of sign, but after closer observation, it was an advertisement for a coffee shop downstairs. Strange.

Fake stuff galore.

I should’ve gotten a Folex, dang.

Oh yes, the profession prepare glasses. What does that mean?

Fake electronics. Fake Nintendo Wii and DS, Sony PSPs, iPhones, iPods, etc. You name it, they had the fake version of it. Oh, and the Cubans loved it. They were cleaning up those fake iPhones which were twice as thick as the real iPhone.

View of Beijing outside of the Pearl Market.

Apparently Pizza Hut is a higher end sit-down restaurant in Beijing. I guess it’s like our CPK?

After shopping for a bit, we went to get a fully body massage at a real shady massage parlor. We were cracking up the whole time because the clothes they gave us to wear were weird as hell.

LOL.

Now the architecture of some of the buildings in Beijing was really impressive. However, there was one structure that was just simply amazing. It is the new CCTV building (I also love this station because their coverage of the Olympics was ridiculous; there were literally about 20 channels which covered all the games live):

CCTV Bulding.

Note: Driving in China was absolutely ridiculous. Mindless pedestrians, cars driving in between lanes for long periods of time, bicyclists that want to die by just crossing the street whenever they want to; just mad chaos. Apparently cars have the right-of-way there. Screw pedestrians.

China has way too may people.

This is Beijing.

Chinese phrase of the day:

“HOW HOW HOW HOW”

Translation: So when Roger’s mom was talking to some Chinese person, she kept saying “HOW HOW HOW HOW” real fast. I wanted to know what was so funny because I thought she was laughing as it sounded like she was saying “HA HA HA HA”. Roger told me “HOW” meant “yes”. A new Chinese word learned? Check.

August 5, 2008 – Tuesday

And we continue our sightseeing activities. The destination was Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.

Where’s Roger?

South of Tiananmen.

Qianmen Area (South of Tiananmen) – this area was under construction to prepare for the Olympics. The city revamped all the structures in this area to reflect ancient Chinese architecture.

Roger’s Chinese family. Aren’t they cute? (I’m just kidding, these are random Chinese people in the subway station, hahaha)

This “One World, One Dream” thing is catching on isn’t it?

Attempting to experience the Communist Revolution in the back of the Mao Mausoleum.

So…we waited in the back of the Mausoleum for a good 30 minutes because there was a huge crowd there. We saw people coming out continuously and wondered how the hell the Mausoleum held that many people inside. Since they weren’t letting us in, I thought that there were only a few groups of people allowed into the Mausoleum at a time and that the people waiting had to wait for the people inside to exit before entering. Roger suggested that we were at the back and that they were probably letting people enter the building from the opposite side. I disagreed. I was wrong, he was right.

And this is where we start the Roger vs. Aaron point system.

Roger – 1

Aaron - 0

While waiting in line to enter the Mausoleum…we saw the cutest and absolute ridiculous thing ever (see photo below).

Their shirts make up a heart! LOL.

Another Communist Revolution Statue in front of the Mausoleum.

So I waited in line and entered the Mausoleum. I saw Mao Zedong’s dead body. It was quite strange. His body has been preserved and is on display but photos are not allowed. He is a short and stubby man. It was interesting to see how the Chinese people paid their respects to him. Some cried, many gave flowers, and almost everybody bought a Mao souvenir afterwards. A good sight to see; however, I’m not sure if it was worth the wait.

Tiananmen Square.

The spirit of the Olympics is here.

Is she famous or is she just white? A ton of Chinese people were taking pictures of her, but I have no idea who she is.

Note: Chinese people were in awe of anybody that was not Asian in Beijing. If you were a white American in Beijing during the games, you basically experienced what life is like as a star. You’d get at least 5 requests to have a picture taken with you. This is especially true if you were in the Team USA section for any Olympic event.

This Chinese girl said to Roger “You’re handsome, can I have a picture with you?”

The Earth.

Olympic sport stick figures seen all over Beijing.

Me re-enacting a basketball figure with the Chinese guy next to me thinking I’m very strange.

There’s that slogan again.

Me and Mao.

Marching along with the Red Party soldiers. I told you I’m trying to absorb the Chinese culture.

Like father, like son.

The Forbidden City was HUGE. It took FOREVER to get through the whole palace. I swear there were like 10 courtyards. Below is a compilation of photos which summarizes our visit to the Forbidden City.

I guess the emperors were ballin’ it up back then.

Yes, I know…everything looks exactly the same.

Me practicing my tai-chi. The Forbidden City gave me the urge to do so.

Where the Emperor Lounged.

An old ass tree.

Rog exploring the Imperial Palace.

After the Forbidden City/Imperial Palace, we went to the Wangfujing Shopping area, which is the premier shopping area in Beijing.

We ate lunch at the APM shopping mall in Wangfujing. The one thing I miss about Beijing is the cheap prices for food. 3 appetizers, 2 large beers, and two main dishes for a whopping 71 RMB…approximately $10 USD.

Nike Beijing.

Chinese Hero Liu Xiang.

A sick display of Nikes.

Nice…Team USA…only if I could dream to watch them play (dream fulfilled during this post.)

Yao and Kobe. Probably the two biggest sport stars in all of China.

Afterwards, we picked up Roger’s dad and the three of us went to a nice Japanese restaurant for dinner. Then, Roger’s mom met us up and we all went to a new bar/shopping area called Solana. Roger’s dad brought out the cigars that I bought for him as a housewarming gift from the states. I smoked a cigar for the first time and we all drank some Johnny Walker on the rocks to complement the cigar.

First time.

Father and son.

The Yang Family.

Nice collection of liquor.

As the night was still young, Rog and I decided to go out after the driver took his parents home. We went to a bar/club area called Gongti Shilu (sp?) and attacked the club Cargo.

Cargo.

To explain Cargo, let’s say…impressive club venue, a lot of Chinese fobs that don’t speak English, good electronic music. This nightlife theme will continue on in this post recapping my Beijing trip. Nonetheless, we had a great time…met some nice Chinese girls to befriend, and learned some new Chinese words.

Chinese phrase(s) of the day:

1) “Wa da mingsu Aaron”

“Ni da mingsu susuma?”

Translation: My name is Aaron, What is your name? (totally butchered)

2) “It’s a secwet, HEhEh”

Translation: “It’s a secret, HehEhE” - Response by random Chinese girls when asked “How old are you?”

3) “oh jou lye”

Translation: “Oh you lie” – Response by random Chinese girls when receiving a complement such as “you are pretty”….sadly they caught us. L

August 6, 2008 – Wednesday

Easy day to describe in bullet point format:

- Woke up hungover at 11:30am.

- Attempted to work out at the gym, but rather just sat around and waited for Roger to finish working out.

- Went to “The Place” shopping center with Roger’s parents to see the ceiling LCD screen (similar to Fremont Street Experience in downtown Vegas).

- Drove by the awesome CCTV building to see it up close.

- Forced ourselves to go out at night which failed miserably because we were so exhausted from the night before. We went to Hou Hai which is a really nice bar area by a man-made lake.

Forcing Roger to go out.

Local Chinese dancing in front of the Hou Hai gate.

Boating in the lake.

Bottleneck.

The last bar we went to before calling it a night.

August 7, 2008 – Thursday

Woke up to see the highly polluted skies.

A picture Roger has in his room, wtf is this?

Anytime we got into a car, Roger passed out.

And…on our way we go to our third sightseeing destination: the Temple of Heaven!

The Temple of Heaven.

Chinese tourists are crazy. You have to battle your way through the crowds to get a peek at whatever there is to see. I participated in this battle and won. I made it under a random lady’s umbrella and got the view I wanted.

One of many jumping photos of Aaron Cho. Roger hated these and got super embarrassed whenever I wanted him to take one of me. Because it annoyed him so much, it made me want to take gay jumping photos even more in spite of his annoyance. If he said he would not take it, I played the guilt trip and said that I’m only in China once, which usually made him give in to take the photo. What a good host.

Roger – 1

Aaron – 1

Patches of grass on the ground.

A REAL Old tree.

Indeed it does. I wish people would follow directions.

The Echo Wall. This was definitely the highlight of our visit to the Temple of Heaven and the park. The Echo Wall actually worked. Roger and I had short conversations on opposite sides of the wall at least 300 feet away from each other. Amazing – caught on video as well for nonbelievers.

Roger approaching the “Mound”.

The Mound is called the Heavenly Center Stone. It was way too packed to stand on the mound so I took a picture of somebody else on it.

Badminton.

Table Tennis.

Note: Damn I took a lot of photos.

The Dream continues.

After our visit to the Temple of Heaven, we made a short trip to another Pearl Market called Hongqiao.

Hmm, I’m getting tired of these pearl markets selling fake stuff now.

Afterwards, we hit up Wangfujing again to eat.

We ate here…McDonal-jade garden? Wait hold on…we didn’t eat here.

We actually really ate at the food court in one of the malls. Most interesting thing about lunch this time was seeing the workers at the food court having a napping session.

Real strange.

My noodle soup….real money for $3 USD.

After dinner, we went to Sanlitun to get a few drinks before we went out to the club.

CHILLLLLLL.

Then off we went to GT Banana Club.

Repeating theme from Club Cargo above…..SUPER Impressive Club which played real good electronic music and even attracts the world’s top DJs, Tiesto and Van Dyk have performed here in the past. However, a lot of local Chinese people who are real difficult to communicate with.

Nice face Rog.

Europeans pole-dancing. Quite disturbing.

After the club, our Chinese girl friends that we were with took us to a place to eat FROGS. Wow.

Frog Soup.

Ribbet.

I can’t believe I ate frogs. Quite delicious actually. Like soft chicken.

2008 BEIJING OLYMPICS

August 8, 2008 – Friday

Woke up early today (around 9am) and went to a restaurant with Roger’s family and their family friends. We ate some REAL bomb Peking Duck.

It was super delicious…I will miss that in Beijing.

For dinner, we were invited for an Olympic Opening Ceremony Party at another one of Roger’s family friends’ condo. The condo where the party was held was really nice…a penthouse on the 30^th floor.

Me, Rog, and Julie – our new friend.

View from the balcony.

That mirror is actually the door to the bathroom… real sick.

Yum.

The Opening Ceremony was AWESOME. The first two hours were insane, but the next two hours (countries coming out with flag bearer) were really lame and I almost fell asleep. It was cool to see some of the fireworks live outside of the condo window. This is when it hit me that I was actually in Beijing for the Olympics.

August 9, 2008 – Saturday

Olympics…here we come!

Our official spectator guide…

On our way to our first Olympic event…Women’s Volleyball.

Some shots of Beijing while driving

Outside the Capital Gymnasium where all indoor volleyball was played.

The Concession Stands

Inside the Capital Gymnasium before the game started with my tickets.

Rog’s favorite part of the trip…even more so than the Olympic games themselves...the Cheerleaders.

Women's Preliminary - Pool B Match 3
Algeria vs
Brazil

The #1 team in the world (Brazil) warming up against Algeria

Rog partaking in some drinking (we finished 6 beers each by the time the event was over because the beers were so ridiculously cheap)

The game action.

A sight that was seen a lot throughout the game…Brazil winning and Algeria losing.

Game Result/Summary

Brazil wins 3 sets to 0

Brazil simply dominated Algeria so the game itself wasn’t too exciting, but drinking was.

Women's Preliminary - Pool A Match 4
Poland vs
Cuba

The Cuba and Poland team.

The action.

Game result/Summary

Cuba wins 3 sets to 1

Similar to the game above, Cuba dominated the game. The team was too good for Poland.

So after watching women’s volleyball, we were off to see Judo later that night at Beijing Science and Technology University Gymnasium.

My Judo ticket.

Beijing Science and Technology University Gymnasium

Terrible line control. It was super crowded in really hot and humid Beijing weather. REAL Sweaty.

Typical security check for every Olympic event. It is more for show than anything else.

Inside the gym.

A lot of judo action going on with two matches going on simultaneously at times.

We saw a ton of matches but the only match which I really cared about was the Gold Medal Match with Choi Minho from Korea.

Men -60 kg Gold Medal Contest
CHOI Minho vs
PAISCHER Ludwig

So the whole time we were watching the judo matches, Roger and I had no idea what the hell was going on. Actually, I still don’t know the rules of Judo. I asked people around me how the scoring worked, and they didn’t know either. A very strange sport. However, once I saw the Korean win the gold medal contest…I got very excited.

Game result/Summary

Choi wins 1000 to 0 – Wins Gold Medal

The match up before Choi Minho made a spectacular takedown which gave him like 1000 points?

Me full with emotion, crying tears of joy for my motherland….(not really crying but I did get a little emotional)

Preparation for the medal ceremony

That’s right, Korea wins gold.

Super proud moment seeing the Korean flag being raised.

After a long day of viewing Olympic events, we forced ourselves to go out to the GT Banana Club…our second time there. Chilled for like a couple of hours and went home early to call it a night.

August 10, 2008 – Sunday

So we got 1 archery ticket from Roger’s mom that morning. However, Roger and I didn’t really care for archery and neither of us wanted to go alone to the event so we decided to go to the event and scalp the ticket.

Apparently, the ticket we had was for Women’s Team Archery and Korea was participating.

Korean fans, woo.

Now this was my first experience with the scalping market for the Olympics. It was a very lively market and was not regulated at all by the Olympic workers who were outside the stadium gates. Very strange I thought.

Note: As a sidenote, I thought overall Beijing didn’t do the greatest job as a host country for the Olympics. I attended 7 events total (approximately 20 different actual games of which some were REAL good games) and every stadium I went to was pretty empty except soccer. This is a shame because the Olympic tickets were so highly in demand. So why were the stadiums so empty for the games? Well the Chinese government/Olympic committee apparently issued a ton of Olympic tickets to local Chinese citizens for free. Many of these people did not attend these events as they either probably had to work, did not care for the game for which they had the ticket, or did not even know what the event was. Thus, the scalping market was huge. Foreigners from all over (especially from the UK) were trying to scalp tickets for ridiculous prices (up to 10 times face value) outside these event venues. What a shame. However, the scalping market worked out well for Roger and me a few times.

After we sold our archery ticket, I found out that the Korean women’s team won the Gold vs. China. I kind of wish I had gone now but oh well.

After we sold our ticket, we looked at the Olympic games schedule and decided that we wanted to watch boxing. So, we went to the Beijing Indoor Workers Gymnasium to see what was being offered. We eventually got two tickets for 500 RMB total, which was a pretty good deal.

Outside the Beijing Workers Gymnasium.

Boxing ticket.

Rog being kind of fruity with the boxing pose.

The Olympic mascots, the Fuwas!

Me and people from Borat’s country of Kazakhstan. I didn’t know anything about this country but after talking to some people from Kazakhstan, I learned that the country is very diverse with over 130 different ethnicities. The women from Kazakhstan were very hot. I like them now, haha.

The action.

The one exciting time of the boxing event….when somebody got knocked out.

Game result/Summary

We saw a ton of fights. There were a total of 13 fights. Although I took a lot more pictures of the boxing event, the event itself was kind of garbage. Rather, I was more interested in the concession stand.

Super cheap beer…a beer for 8 RMB. A little over a dollar.

It’s kind of a blurry picture but it says “Let’s do the Mexican Wave”. Now, they showed this display at every event I attended and the Chinese crowds loved the wave. But…come on, really…the Mexican wave? Do they do the Chinese wave in Mexico? Haha, sooo strange.

After the boxing event, we went outside to catch a cab to go out but it was pouring rain. We went to a bar inside a nice hotel instead and watched the USA vs. China Men’s Basketball Game.

August 11, 2008 – Monday

We had lunch at Din Tai Fung with Roger’s family and Julie’s family and friends.

This place was delicious. The dumplings were real money. Just thinking about it makes my mouth salivate.

After lunch, Roger’s family and I went to the South of Tiananmen Square area and walked around a bit.

We dropped off Roger’s parents at home and then we decided that we wanted to watch swimming at the Water Cube so the driver took us to the cube so we could try to purchase some scalping tickets.

A shot of the Bird’s Next on our drive to the water cube.

The super active scalping market.

We weren’t able to purchase swimming tickets because those crazy Europeans were selling the tickets for what seemed like 20 times the face value of the tickets. But, we were able to purchase a set of two tennis tickets for an event which had already started 20 minutes ago. We had no idea where the tennis stadium/courts were and we were already late, so we jumped into a cab and rushed to the event.

Photo of the sweet Water Cube (aka Phelps’ Cube) on our way to the tennis stadium.

Pretty cool building.

Driving past the Olympic Village where all the athletes stayed.

We didn’t know who was playing in the tennis matches for the event but we just wanted to see any Olympic event. So, we didn’t have any expectations. However, our expectations were far exceeded as our tennis tickets were for some amazing games.

Beijing Olympic Green Tennis – Center Stadium

The courtyard with all the tennis courts.

Inside the center stadium.

Women's Singles First Round
WILLIAMS Venus vs
BACSINSZKY Timea

Venus Williams in action.

Game result/Summary

Venus wins 2 out of 3 sets. This was a very entertaining match and it was real cool seeing Venus play.

Men's Singles First Round
GINEPRI Robby vs
DJOKOVIC Novak

Now I’m not a huge tennis fan so I didn’t know who Novak Djokovic was. He’s the 3^rd best player in the world and Rog was real excited to see him play.

Djokovic ready to tear it up.

Robby Ginepri from the US was pretty good.

The center stadium at night.

Djokovic is Rog’s boy.

Game result/Summary

Djokovic wins 2 out of 3 sets by close margins. This game was really good. It seemed like Robby from the USA (ranked #65) had a good chance to pull an upset in the beginning, but throughout the game Djokovic took control of the match and was able to seal the deal.

Women's Singles First Round
LI Na vs
KUZNETSOVA Svetlana

The home crowd loved Li Na.

Huge camera by Getty Images.

Game result/Summary

Li Na wins 2 out of 3 sets by extremely close margins with the first set going into sudden death. This game was really good and highly entertaining. The Chinese crowd got super involved in the game and I think Li Na wouldn’t have been able to pull off the win if it wasn’t for the home crowd supporting her. As a side note, Chinese people need to learn Tennis etiquette. They made a lot of noise and inappropriate times and I think this was a big issue for the tennis matches during the Olympics as publicized by the press.

The Water Cube changing colors at night time. So sick.

After our tennis event, we went out to Sanlitun to eat dinner and grab a few drinks. We chilled for a bit and called it a night.

Sanlitun bar street.

Liquor bottles glowing on the wall.

Giant Panda in a bar.

August 12, 2008 – Tuesday

Off to see Men’s Volleyball!

Holla.

Men's Preliminary - Pool A Match 9
United States vs
Italy

Team USA and fans.

The volleyball action.

Once again, the Mexican wave.

Game result/Summary

Team USA wins 3 sets to 1 in a grueling matchup. Overall a real solid volleyball game which I was quite into.

Men's Preliminary - Pool B Match 10
Serbia vs
Brazil

Brazilian fans are crazy. I am convinced they got the best fans in the Olympics.

The action.

Me with team BRRRAAHH—ZZEEOOO.

Chinese phrase(s) of the day:

JAH-YO !!!!!!

Translation: ADD GAS!!! BRAHHH-ZEEEO JAH-YO!

After men’s volleyball, I decided to take out Roger’s family for a nice dinner.

We went to eat at a nice restaurant in the new Nineteen Forty-Nine bar/restaurant area.

Me and Rog kickin it.

Hi Duck.

Bye Duck.

After dinner, Rog and I went out to go party and on the way to the club we saw some interesting signs.

Interesting.

Beijing did a good job correcting all the incorrect English around the city; however I was determined to still find some broken English.

We went to Club Cargo for the second time and met some new Chinese friends to party with.

Huge language barrier. I just nodded, smiled, and poured drinks for myself at their table. Real good and funny times kickin it with the Chinese fobs.

Iced tea and whiskey.

August 13, 2008 – Wednesday

We saw soccer today at the Beijing Workers Stadium.

Soccer tickets.

We ran into one of our friends from UW, Melissa!

Men's First Round - Group B - Match 18
Nigeria vs
United States

Jam-packed Workers Stadium with attendance of 53,000 people.

The soccer action.

Game result/Summary

Nigeria wins 2-1, eliminating team USA from the Olympics.

Men's First Round - Group A - Match 22
Argentina vs
Serbia

The team introductions.

Argentina dominating Serbia.

This is what the Olympics is about…people from different nations joining and having a great time.

Game result/Summary

Argentina wins 2-0. The best part of this game was the Chinese fans in the crowd. At first, everybody was cheering for Argentina and the crowd continuously cheered “MESSI” (for famous Argentina player Lionel Messi) throughout the game. However, as Argentina went up 1-0 during the game and Messi was not subbed in as the game was nearing its final minutes, the Chinese crowd turned on the Argentina team. Whenever Serbia touched the ball, the 50,000+ fans roared in Workers Stadium. Whenever Argentina touched the ball, everybody booed really loud. This was an amazing sight to see and quite humorous too.

August 14, 2008 – Thursday

We went shopping in the daytime with Roger’s fam in Wangfujing.

Yao Ming standing tall in China.

After shopping, we had a dinner to attend with Roger’s parents’ friends. Apparently they know a guy named Tim, who works for the NBA in China. So, we were invited to a private NBA dinner party and got tickets to a VIP Box for the USA vs Greece Game. Do you know how excited I was? You have no idea…I was like a 10 year old boy about to piss my pants.

Wherever you sat, you got to keep the jersey. Solid. I ended up with the Dirk and Melo jerseys.

Good grub.

Real big status.

Sea urchin and Chicken Foot.

My box ticket to see the USA Redeem team.

Men's Preliminary Round Group B- Game 35
United States vs
Greece

Oh yeah!

LeBron at the line

Kobe bombing 3’s

Chillen in our private box.

Redeem team.

Makin’ it rain.

Rog lookin for beer in the fridge.

The happiest boy on the planet.

Time to change up Jerseys with Rog.

Game result/Summary

USA wins 92-69. Seeing the US Olympic Team was ridiculously awesome even though they crushed Greece.

Men's Preliminary Round Group A- Game 36
Argentina vs
Croatia

Argentina vs. Croatia

Andres Nociono from the Chicago Bulls

Manu at the line.

Game result/Summary

Argentina wins 77-53. Argentina looked real solid in the game with its 5 NBA players. I think Argentina will give team USA a pretty tough battle.

After the game, we went out to the bars and then eventually ended up at Club China Doll in Sanlitun which was the happening place to be that night.

Me, Melissa, and Rog

China Doll.

Sherry, Rog, and myself

Hungary Men’s Swimming Team. I told them I was the point guard for the Korean Basketball team. Oh good ol’ Olympics.

After the club, we went to eat at McDonalds and we saw a VERY interesting sight.

People sleeping at McDonalds…what’s going on?

August 15, 2008 – Friday

We were all quite hungover from the night before and Sherry (Rog’s family friend) was with us for one last day before going back to DC. Sherry and I wanted to eat some Scorpions in Beijing because it’s just the Beijing thing to do. So, the three of us drove all around Beijing with our driver to find a place that serves scorpions.

Go Korea!

After a good 3 hour search…we did not find a place that serve scorpions and thus we were very sad.

Our sad faces.

So instead, we just walked around the Solana shopping area to kill time…super hungover and I had the worst diarrhea ever. =(

Jumping photo in spite of Roger’s annoyance.

For dinner, we went to the Summer House again to eat some more Peking Duck with Julie’s family. To my pleasant surprise, the restaurant served scorpions! Too bad Sherry left before this dinner.

When this dish came out, do you know how freaked out I was? Now, yeah I heard about eating scorpions and I wanted to try it out but I thought it’d be chopped up or like served in a way where the actual scorpion figure is demented. Boy was I wrong.

So…after being a big pussy for about 30 minutes in front of Roger’s family and friends, I decided to man up and just do it.

I ate a scorpion.

Dominated this thing.

After dinner, we went out for our final night in Beijing to a new club called Bling where we booked a table. We went to Sanlitun after too and got home at around 5am.

With Melissa and her friend Michelle

August 16, 2008 – Saturday

Got up 4 hours later at 9am…and went to the airport. Bye Beijing!

Summary of Trip

I had an amazing time in Beijing. Initially I wanted to check out other cities in China such as Shanghai or Hong Kong, but I think 2 weeks in Beijing was perfect. The first week was full of sightseeing, and when the Olympics started the second week…we hit the games hard. I enjoyed the Olympic atmosphere during the games and the nightlife. Meeting people from different parts of the world, hanging out with Roger’s family and friends, watching the best athletes from all over the world compete, and just absorbing the Chinese culture was simply amazing. Roger and his family were terrific hosts and I couldn’t have imagined a better trip than the one I had. Great trip filled with a ton of memories. Time to get back to the real world now…

Note: For the rest of the pictures from my trip, see my Facebook Profile.

Mid-year post...

2008-07-28T00:25:00.000-07:00

Wow it has been awhile. It is almost August and I haven't made a post since January. I can't believe half of 2008 has already passed. This year has gone by really quick. So, after I passed the CPA exam in January, I've been really enjoying living in the city this past year. With no exams to worry about, I've been working during the weekdays and partying on the weekends. I must say I really love San Francisco. The city, the people, the culture, the limitless amount of things to do. It's really unbelievable. Either way, I've decided to make a post before I go to China for the Olympics in several days.

So backtracking a few months ago... When I was working on a client in Mountain View (in March) and staying with my college buddy Roger at his home in the South Bay, I asked him what I should do with all my vacation days. He suggested that I come with him to Beijing for the Olympics because his parents live there. With no hesitation, within 2 days, I booked a $1600+ roundtrip flight to Beijing for the Olympics from August 1st to August 16th. Now that the time for my vacation is almost here, I am getting really amped up and excited for this trip.

To provide a summary of what has occurred in my life in 2008 thus far, I went through my Blackberry pictures and I realized that the pictures on my phone and some on my computer captures a lot of my life's activity in 2008...although there are a lot of other things that happened which I do not have pictures for but when I get them from friends, I'll post them as well....Enjoy!

San Francisco Pillow Fight 2008 on Valentines Day (at Embarcadero Square)
This was just ridiculous...thousands of people meeting up to partake in a massive pillow fight. Awesome.

Seeing Caleb for the first time.
My cousin Alisa had a baby boy....this is a picture of him during my post-busy season visit to Vegas in late March. A new member of the Cho/Kim family....and he's so good looking too!

Multiple visits to the beach by Chrissy Field. Fun times. Plus, I love the Golden Gate Bridge.

My bedroom...real messy in this picture. I love my view though.

Brotherly activity, purchasing a pair of shades together. Holla.

EY Cruise...view of the GG Bridge. Solid.

P.Cho made a visit during Memorial Day Weekend....this is him at SF Museum of Modern Art.

Oh yeah, I had firm training in June... In addition to learning the firm's audit methodology, I learned to have a better work-life balance. The picture above exemplifies this balance.

During 4th of July Weekend, I went to visit my buddy Roger in Hollywood, CA. During this visit, I met a few famous people:

My boy keRMiT theeeee FROG.

My main man MJ.

P.Diddy.

Now...on this same trip. I went to Vegas for 2 days, which was a lot of fun. Met up with family and friends and had a really relaxing weekend. During one night at club Prive, I took a picture with Jerry Rice....it was pretty legendary. Roger got that picture on his camera, so I'll be bugging him for it for awhile.

The next two pictures I have on my camera will follow a single theme: "Big Ass [Noun Here]"

Eating Breakfast in Hollywood....that is one Big Ass Cup of Coffee.

Tell me that is not one BIG ASS WALL....I mean, look at that!?! It's the strangest thing. This is a picture I took last week working on my real estate client in the city. This is the view that I from my conference room. It's just a huge wall with no windows or anything...what is that thing?

Random Pictures found on my computer that I'd like to share:

DAS BOOT !

Alcatraz on the EY cruise.

Paul, Me, and Cody during Paul's SF visit. Cody is sleeping sitting up. Pretty impressive.

On the streets of the Haight.

Alright, I think that's all I got for now. I purchased a new camera for Beijing so I plan on taking a lot of pictures. Hopefully those pictures on my camera will somehow make it as a post on this site. Otherwise, see you next year in early 2009! Haha, I hope not.

The week in review...

2008-01-11T00:42:00.000-08:00

Wow, it has been a hectic week. A lot has been going on for me this past week whether it's been issues regarding my relationship, working, trying to exercise again, studying for my final section of the CPA Exam, or thinking of my long-term goals and evaluating my career. I've been unassigned in the office all week (which means I'm not working on any clients, just hanging out in the office) so I've had a good amount of time to dedicate to studying and preparing for my exam today (Friday). How do I feel about this exam? Truthfully, I feel pretty dang confident about it...but this scares me. But Aaron, if you're confident, isn't that a good thing? Well, I guess it is except the fact that I may be underestimating the exam because the exam topic relates to my career (Auditing) and because when I've taken the other 3 sections of the exam, I was never this confident (was quite worried actually) before taking them and I passed all three with quite good scores. Eh...hopefully I'll pass this last one, because this CPA Exam has been a LONG journey.

Since I wasn't really stressing about the exam this whole week, I started going to the gym again. Truthfully, it sucks. I remember at one point I used to go to the gym everyday (senior year of high school to freshman year of college). Then, things in life started to pick up and get busy whether it was studying, relationships, hanging out with friends, etc. and these things took priority in my life over exercising. I worked out on and off for the past 3 years and it's been alright because I haven't gained a drastic amount of weight nor have I felt really unhealthy. Well, that's all changed now. Let me explain what I do for a living. I'm an auditor at a Big 4 Public Accounting Firm...which means I work fairly long hours. Here are some interpretive definitions of my company: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ernst+%26+young . Just as a disclaimer, I didn't write any of those definitions...I would like to keep my job in case some coworkers read this blog :) . Anyways, as I was saying...long hours (especially during busy season which starts in a couple of days), not much sleep, eating unhealthy, not much time to exercise. As a result, I've been feeling unhealthy. Some days I feel greasy inside and it makes me feel sick. I drink about 3 cups of coffee a day (one in the morning to start off my day, one after lunch, and one "I'm tired as hell, I need to make it through this day" cup at any point of the day when I'm extremely not focused. Going to the gym obviously makes me feel healthier and I know all this, but for me it's sometimes still not worth going. First of all, I'm really lazy most of the times and getting to the gym is just a big pain. After work, I come home, I eat dinner, and even the thought of going to the gym makes me tired. I hope I can go to the gym more often, but seriously....it probably won't happen until I start getting fat and feel really gross inside, hahaha...so sad but so true.

As I mentioned above, the final section of the CPA Exam for me is today (noon to be exact). I am so eager to get it over with. After I moved down to the city from Seattle, all I've been doing is studying for these exams. The city is so awesome and there's so many things to do but I haven't had a chance to do anything. I have dreams...I want to go biking, running through the parks around here, golfing, playing basketball in the nice weather, reading at the park, etc. and I've thought that once I finish my exams, these "dreams" will become a reality. Now that busy season is approaching, all of these things that I wanted to do after the CPA Exam are becoming a dream once again. Lame.

So yesterday I heard about this guy named Kenny George. I YouTube'd him and I was just amazed. He's a GIANT. He's a 7'8 NCAA college basketball player who plays for UNCA. He looks like a man playing against elementary school kids in a college game....just plain ridiculous.

Check him out here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=WctBazFZAMc

Too bad he sucks though and is extremely slow. I mean, you know somebody sucks when they're a junior in college and nobody has ever heard of him...that's the case with this guy. When I asked some of my coworkers "dude have you heard of that Kenny George guy?", they were like "huh? what are you talking about?". Plus, a lot of people heard of this guy because he was #1 on ESPN's Top Plays a couple days ago on Wednesday. He didn't get the #1 spot because he made a ridiculous dunk on somebody with a ton of force or because he had a crazy block from 10 feet away. He was #1 because he got dunked on by Tyler Hansbrough...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=fnBkMz-kpsg

I really hope he makes the NBA and makes millions because he must have a really hard life being that tall.

To end this post, I'll include some pictures of my apartment in the city from when I first moved in. My apartment since than has been furnished and now looks a lot nicer and cleaner.

My really messy room when I first moved in...with my unassembled dresser.

The hallway that leads to the living room.

The living room with a nice TV but a cases of water bottles used as chairs and cardboard boxes used as a coffee/dining room table.

Skylight in my bathroom. I'm rollin' big.

My apartment in the city.

I plan on taking pictures of my apartment now and posting updated pictures soon. I bet that won't happen for a long time because it takes a lot of effort and I'm pretty lazy. Time to sleep now and own this test tomorrow.

Welcoming the 2008 New Year!

2008-01-02T21:18:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody! 2007 has come and gone and now the New Year 2008 is here.

2007 was a great year for me and here's why:
- I graduated college
- I moved to a beautiful city, San Francisco
- I started my new career (at a public accounting firm)
- I've finished 3 sections of the CPA Exam (have one more remaining January 11th =O)
- My family, friends, and girlfriend are healthy

My 2008 Resolutions are:
- Find a church in San Francisco
- Build and maintain a good relationship with God
- Maintain strong relationships with family and friends
- Form new friendships
- Exercise and get healthier
- Work hard and excel in my career
- Be humble
- Be more selfless and thoughtful of others
- Find a balance between working hard, enjoying life, and following my faith
- Be an overall better person...

In summary, 2007 was a great year. I hope 2008 is better! Happy New Year everybody!