The Beijing 2008 Summer Olympic Games has officially ended. Set aside a few controversies, it was a job well done by the Chinese organiser in running the event. Kudos for that.
The closing ceremony was ok for me; nothing much different than the opening… visually pleasing but not heart warming. I am a bit worried for London though; their short appearance last night was quite bland.
Beijing Olympics will be remembered as the Olympic with greatness. Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt obviously stole the spotlight… a few other personal favourite winners include Yelena Isinbayeva, Guo Jingjing, Zhang Ning, Roger Federer, Matthias Steiner, Japanese softball team and Argentine men soccer team etc.
It has been a wonderful event, but I am glad it has finally ended. The Olympics had taken away too much of my working (and sleeping) hours for the past two weeks… plenty of catchup needed now.
It’s goodbye to Beijing, and hello to London in 2012.
Some random news about Beijing 2008 Olympics…
The power of love
Matthias Steiner of Germany was the men’s +105kg weightlifting champion on Tuesday. When I first saw the picture, I thought of how romantic this guy was… I only knew a day later that the woman in the picture was his wife Susann, who died in a car accident last year, and it sparked plenty of emotions…
Matthias with his gold medal and a photo of his late wife (Image via
Beijing2008)
This will probably be the most memorable Beijing Olympics’ photo for me… it draws love, sadness, romance, pride, commitment and loyalty. If I am a woman I would probably fall in love with this guy.
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American shooter Matthew Emmons is going to be one of the most memorable characters in Olympic history…
Matthew and Katerina Emmons
In Athens 2004, Matthew was just a shot away from winning a gold in the three positions competition… but he shot on the wrong target, a mistake that sounds almost impossible in professional shooting. He finished eighth.
It’s not all bad for Matthew though… later that night, he went to a pub and met Czech shooter Kateřina Kůrková who offered him consolation. The couple fell in love and got married in 2007.
If the name Kateřina Emmons sounds familiar to you, that’s because she is the winner of the first gold medal in Beijing Olympics 2008.
Matthew was trying to emulate his wife’s success, and he was pretty close at the three positions competition, again needing just an average score at his final shot to secure the gold.
Somehow, it’s deja vu… he didn’t fire the wrong target this time, but pulled the trigger at a wrong timing and got a bad score. He finished fourth.
Make no mistake though, Matthew is an excellent shooter. He won a gold in Athens in other shooting event and also a silver in Beijing. It’s just the bizarreness of how he missed those two golds that is going to make him a folklore of the Games.
Matthew has already expressed his ambition for London 2012… wish him luck.
[With reference from CNN and Wiki]
Moscow is the world’s most expensive city for expatriates for the third consecutive year, according to the latest Cost of Living Survey from Mercer.
Mercer’s survey is arguably the world’s most comprehensive cost of living survey and is used to help multinational companies and governments determine compensation allowances for their expatriate employees.
The survery covers 143 cities across six continents and measures the comparative cost of over 200 items in each location, including housing, transport, food, clothing, household goods and entertainment.
Top 10 most expensive cities in 2008
Moscow (Russia), Tokyo (Japan), London (UK), Oslo (Norway), Seoul (South Korea), Hong Kong (China), Copenhagen (Denmark), Geneva (Switzerland), Zurich (Switzerland) and Milan (Italy).
Surprisingly US have only one city in the top 50 (New York at 22nd)… and Canada don’t even make it into top 50. Perhaps we should migrate to that region instead lol.
This patriotic Chinese student is among thousands of Chinese students and expatriates taking part in a silent protest on April 19 against the BBC and other British news organization for their distorted and biased reports on Lhasa riots and the London leg of Olympics torch relay.
I am not really sure how biased BBC was, but this Chinese patriot probably needs to spend more time learning his English…
English lesson of The Day…
Lier: A person who lies down (horizontally, i.e. lies on bed, lies on floor)
Liar: A person who tells lies (not telling the truth)
I make a lot of English grammatical mistakes too, so it’s probably not proper for me to tease this fella; but it’s just funny… imagine you are on international news and the first thing people notice is some bizarre typo.
The Singapore Flyer, the world’s largest observation wheel, was officially opened on yesterday (April 15) by Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Long.
Located at Marina Bay, the Singapore Flyer comprises a 150-metre-diameter wheel and a total height of 165 metres (equivalent to ~ 42 stories high), which is about 30m taller than the famous London Eye and 5m taller than the previous record holder, The Star of Nanchang in Jiangxi, China.
Group of people has frozen themselves simultaneously for 4 minutes at Kuala Lumpur’s Pavilion shopping centre on April 13, 2008, at 3.35pm.
Inspired by Improv Everywhere’s Frozen Grand Central, similar pranks were performed in London, Paris and other cities where groups of people would pause themselves at the same period of time at a specific location. It’s hard to explain in words… watch the videos and you would probably understand what I mean.
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