A special morning

After a few days in Xi'an (where i handed in my resignation effective end of August) me and John returned to Beijing this morning and took the bus from the West Station all through town to where we live in the East, through Tiananmen etc.

We actually came on the train from Tibet (though we got on at Xi'an) and it was not a particularly exciting journey, except the guy next to me had got 1 ticket to the opening ceremony from booking online last year and was traveling from Xi Ning (30 hours away) to Beijing for it. As we got closer to Beijing and light dawned we saw mist over the fields, but as we got into Beijing it was still 'misty' and even now, at 9.30am visibility is absolutely awful, which is a shame.

All the Olympic street signs had been up for months, even the scaffolding that was up around most key buildings making them look beautiful for the big day had been taken down last week. The first signs of the 'special day' was on the bus as the conductor was selling special tickets (just for today) and although most people had already used their card to swipe on, they still (me included) bought an extra 'special' ticket. Indeed, during the journey it became clear people were riding buses just to collect the special tickets (several different versions, only available today).

Next, from the bus, we noticed long lines outside all the post offices -of course today is the only day you can get special stamps commemorating the Olympics (unless there are more special ones on the closing plenary day too). John got a call from his friend -he had been queuing all night at a bank to get a special 10 Yuan note, only available today.

As we went through Tiananmen, it was closed for hundreds of cheer leaders who were practicing, it seems, for the cavalcades of important leaders who will be coming through for lunch with President Hu and the others. The TV on the bus informed everyone some roads will be closed for this lunch, as well as the torch relay as the torch makes its way to the stadium tonight.

The streets are very bare (apart from the legions of volunteers, police, army and all kinds of other 'groups') for a 9am rush hour -partly because everyone in Beijing gets the day off work today; a consequence of having the opening ceremony on a friday i suppose, but it had to be on the 8th -the special number that it is!