Tell me something I don't know about... and "Kloppt euch endlich!"

'Tell me something I don't know about... /The (un)known facts of yesterday's men semi-finals basketball in the Wukesong Stadium:

The participants: Spain (winner game 1), Lithuania, US (winner game 2), Argentina.
Best fans: Lithuanian fans. They shouted in their (to me) Russian-similar language and managed to make most noise.

Dunking winner: theUS team

Who could have won if: Lithuania, if their star players hadn't done too much fouling - two of the players had to leave the competition because of five fouls.

Atmosphere: quite quiet. To me it seemed that half of the stadium was sleeping.

My favorite player: Roca (Argentina)

Volunteers: helpful, but 'Chenglish' is a challenge. One volunteer gave me a black bracelet (German: Armreif) with some Chinese signs on it. She wanted to talk to me in English. So because I couldn't fully read what was written on it, I asked her: "What does it say?" She answered: "You must smell". I took a smell, but didn't notice anything and she was laughing. Clarification: She meant to say: "You must (i.e. should) smile", but used a wrong pronunciation.

"Kloppt euch endlich!" /Taekwondo

Because I am living in Asia right now, I wanted to see some Asian martial art contest at the Olympic games. I got some taekwondo ticket for women and men (prequalifation for quarter finals). The rules and the point system are not easy to understand for an outsider, but most of the fights were quite suspenseful and the many different kicks looked difficult. The odd one out was a round between two women where none of them wanted to attack and basically nearly all the three rounds nothing happened. We clapped our hands to encourage them, but nothing happened.

Most fans: Chinese flags were most to be seen.

Most lively fans: los Mexicanos. Pocos mexicanos hiciceron una fiesta incomparable.

Most astounding news to me: I didn'tknow that Taekwondo sportmen/ women tend to be that tall.

Interesting outsider: Mali (so far no medalls at all) made it to the quarter finals. Ever been to Bamako (the main town of Mali)?

Also interesting: The fightress from Egypt was wearing a veil (German: Schleier) while fighting.