Beijing 2008

I am pretty sure that anyone reading this from China has already seen the Olympic opening ceremonies. I can safely say that everyone in this country with a TV watched the ceremonies. For you guys reading from another continent-I HOPE YOU WATCHED THEM! THEY WERE AMAZING!! Andy and I actually got our cable hooked up just so we can watch the Olympics. Though we have a TV in our house, we aren't usually interested in watching Chinese TV, until NOW! The Kvernens came over to watch the ceremony over chips and salsa and queso-how international we are-Americans watching the Olympics in Chinese while eating Mexican. We of course could not understand all of the commentary since it was in Chinese but we were none the less WOWED by this unbelievable display of Chinese culture and spirit!

Did you know that the ceremonies were on 8/08/08 at 8pm? That's because 8 is considered a very lucky number in this country. Also interesting is the amount of money spent on the ceremony-more than 10 times more than any other Olympic opening ceremony! 300 million! I will say that the money paid for one fantastic show. I couldn't resist posting some photos I found online-they are amazing. (to really see these photos double click to enlarge)

With a several thousand year history, it was no surprise that China chose to give the world a taste of both it's ancient and modern culture!

Many of the performances had 2008 performers.

The time, energy and organization (not to mention RMB-Chinese currency) it took to put on a show like this just blows my mind! I was really struck by how different China is from America while watching the show- not to mention how unique each nation was that walked in the parade of nations (which unfortunately I slept through most of) I am just amazed at God's creativity when I see the cultures of different nations-each so unique and so beautiful.

We've already watched some men's gymnastics, women's basketball and weight lifting (all I can say is wow-those women are buff and interestingly many have really short arms. That explains why I was always really bad at weight lifting class in high school-my long lanky arms!)

Hope you are enjoying these games as much as we are!