Our hotel remains overstaffed.
Current ratio of staff/volunteers to guests at the Beijing Conference Center: roughly 17 to 1. Helpfulness continues to overflow, to the point where I'm expecting someone to brush my teeth for me.
The only drawback for spoiled American hotel visitors is the towels.
You get out of the shower at a Marriott, Hilton or Hyatt and have four to six fat towels on a rack. Here? One, roughly the thickness of a placemat and the age of Dara Torres.
We will endeavor to persevere.
-- ESPN.com senior writer Pat Forde
[Editor's note: No, this isn't an update on 'Stache-Gate, just a heads up that we've launched our second Olympics blog into cyberspace -- The Climate Blog. Check it out now!]
If the Chinese people try any harder to be helpful, they'll kill themselves in the effort. It was touching and also a bit exhausting watching them hustle to try to make everything go smoothly for visitors on the journey from the airport through customs to baggage claim and then to the buses for transport to our media lodging.
When I got off the bus from the airport at the wrong hotel building in the Beijing Conference Center complex, they would not hear of me walking the roughly 40 yards to the correct building. A golf cart was summoned and a bellman grabbed my bags. It was almost embarrassing.
(The U.S. tennis team arrived in Beijing at the same time we did. I squeezed on the shuttle to the baggage claim with most of them. Venus Williams is remarkably tall in person.)
Just judging from the bus ride in and checking into our hotel, the Olympic work force looks a tad overstaffed at this point. There are more cops and BOCOG volunteers than tourists, athletes and visiting media combined. At various spots, there were groups of workers and volunteers sitting around and looking bored -- too many of them, too few tasks. Same with the cops on seemingly every street corner.
I heard that several U.S. cyclists arrived wearing masks, concerned about the pollution. I know the USOC quickly sent out a lavishly apologetic statement. I also know this: It's either quite overcast today [Wednesday] or the smog is truly epic. No idea which is the truth at this point.
Hotel accommodations are fine. Nothing lavish, and the beds are harder than most countertops, but we won't be in our rooms much anyway.
Random Kentucky connection of the day: The trees lining the highway leading away from the airport have the lower 3-4 feet of their trunks whitewashed. That was an old and fairly mysterious custom in Kentucky, presumed to be for nothing more than aesthetic purposes. I cannot possibly imagine a common arboreal thread between Bagdad, Ky., and Beijing, China, but who knows?
Lost in translation moment of the day: According to a pamphlet in my room, our hotel offers a bowling room, a billiards room, a pingpong room and a "shoot arrow" room. Archery, I guess? Not your normal hotel game-room activity, but I might have to check out the "shoot arrow" thing.
-- ESPN.com senior writer Pat Forde
I got up early Wednesday morning to go for a bike ride in Beijing. It's been my routine since arriving here on Friday.
Right before I left my apartment, I saw an advisory from ABC News' Olympic mailing list saying there was some kind of incident going on near the Olympic Stadium.
I figured I'd ride by and see what I could find out. I grabbed my photo camera and Olympic media credential and rode about three minutes before arriving on the scene.
There was a man about 100 feet up a highway post, wearing climbing gear and a climbing helmet, holding a banner that read "Tibet Will Be Free." He also had a Tibetan flag hanging out of his backpack.
There was a crowd of about 100 people down the hill from where the post was located; policemen were located at the top of the hill, closer to the post.
I dropped my bike and started taking pictures. After a few minutes, I wanted to try to talk to the man up on the post. So, I climbed up the hill to get a closer look. I yelled out, "Hey buddy, who are you?" The policemen turned and looked at me, but didn't react. But then, a man in civilian clothes (he was wearing shorts and a T-shirt) started screaming at me and tried to wave me away.
I held up my credential and yelled out, "TV! Media! Press!"
The man kept yelling, speaking mostly in Mandarin; but through some broken English, he pointed to the stadium, saying, "You're only here for [this]." He was implying that I was only here to cover the Games and this protest was none of my business. Then, he screamed, "Who are you? Who are you?" I kept trying to explain I was credentialed media.
Some of the policemen walked toward me and grabbed me by the arm. They were angry and aggressive while holding on to me, yelling in my face. But I still kept yelling, "TV! Media! Press! TV! Media! Press!" The policemen were speaking into their walkie-talkies, but I didn't understand what they were saying.
I then went back to the bottom of the hill and took more pictures. By that point, a fire truck pulled up and moved a cherry picker up the pole to try to bring down the protester. The same civilian came down the hill and started screaming at me again. Some of the onlookers joined in, and I was circled by people who started pushing and shoving me, screaming and pointing to the stadium. I never got hit or punched, but I was definitely physically accosted. I was trying to be smart about it and I wasn't hitting anyone, but I kept yelling, "Media! Press!"
Then, someone came up from behind me, someone I believe was an American. He was holding a camera and said, "Hey, buddy. This is going to get ugly; you should get out of here."
"Where are you from," he asked me.
I said, "I am from ESPN. Who are you with?"
I didn't see a credential on him, but he answered, "I am a freelancer ... just call me No-Neck."
I finally got on my bike and zoomed back to the apartment. I kept looking over my shoulder to see whether anyone was following me. But I didn't see anyone.
-- ESPN bureau producer Arty Berko
Since the Games haven't started yet, I have had a bit of free time to explore the city.
So … I went straight to the mall. My colleagues Tina Teng and Jen Altarriba joined me.
(But first ... our offices have these ingenious bathroom contraptions -- instead of using a hand dryer, you stick your hands in a slit and it blows drying air at a superhero pace. When it's done, your hands are actually dry, not clammy. Why don't we have this in the U.S.?)
We are lucky we have Tina -- she speaks Mandarin and helps guide us around. We hopped into a cab and had a "Sex and the City" moment, trying to surreptitiously buy designer bags in the basement of the mall. The salespeople said they were real! The salespeople also were relentless.
My first impressions of Beijing: vast, vibrant, thrilling, dirty and hot. I'm already taking allergy pills, and the countdown to when I'll have to don the mask has begun.
I ate dinner on a lake where people were boating, swimming and flying kites. It was peaceful and airy. On my way there, I ran into a man writing, or brushing, messages on the street. I don't know what he was writing, but he was chatty and kind and let me take a picture of him. Maybe by the end of this trip I'll learn a Chinese character or two; for now, I had to go with my initials -- JG -- in English.
As far as the famed traffic here, comparatively speaking, Nairobi, Kenya, traffic is worse. India's pollution is worse. But let's gauge the cumulative effect. A few more weeks to go …
I also went to the Main Press Center and had to buy souvenirs for our ESPN set. I was technically shopping on assignment. A very nice doorman escorted me to a taxi with all my bags. Everyone here is so jacked up to please and help visitors.
The venues are as breathtaking as everyone says. As best as one can get chills in this heat, I got chills when I saw the Water Cube.
Since I started on a bathroom theme, I'll end on one, too. At the mall, when I used the public bathroom, there were signs saying, "Pee only in here, otherwise, you will be punished." Love the brashness!
-- ESPN bureau producer Justine Gubar
Michael Phelps arrived in Beijing on Monday, avoiding the fanfare that will follow the American swimmer from here on out.
Unless you've been living under a rock, you know Phelps is again trying to break Mark Spitz's record for most gold medals (seven) in one Olympic Games. But one category in which we know Phelps won't best Spitz: the 'stache department.
Don't believe us? You be the judge …
--Joy Russo
(Photos: Getty Images)
ESPN bureau producer Arty Berko checks in:
I've been here since Friday, but I'm still dealing with jet lag. So, when I woke up today at 5:30 a.m. (again), I called my colleague, bureau producer Greg Amante, and we decided to go for a ride.
Rule No. 1: While biking in Beijing, there are no rules. Greg and I immediately bet which would cause the first accident -- a car or another bike. In Washington, D.C. (where I call home), cars usually stop if they see you, or at least try not to hit you. Here, no such deal. Cars don't care if you are in their way; they will plow you down. So, you can't sightsee while biking, else you risk ending up on someone's windshield.
The first three days here were very clear, but today is quite murky. Still, I think the haze is not really pollution this time; I had no issues while biking for about an hour. My biggest worry was getting lost, but luckily, I have a good sense of direction. Tomorrow we will try to get to Tiananmen Square.
By the way … the Mets have lost ever since I got here. Maybe I should go home. I'm here to build the Mets' fan base in Beijing!