Older again and Olympic fever

On Tuesday I had birthday but I had to celebrate twice this time: My Chinese colleagues always party their birthday the day or two days before their birthdate. So on Monday I decided to do as the Chinese do and buy ice cream for everybody after lunch. I informed my colleagues about my plan, but my colleague answered: 'We have to ask our boss first'. I was very surprised but later on I realised why: The free birthday rounds at work are normally not paid by the person having birthday as in Germany, but by the company. So my colleague had to get the permission to charge the expenses on the company. She didn't know I was planning to pay on my own. Monday after work we went for karaoke, where, because I had birthday (at least according to the Chinese definition) we got a big birthday cake and a bottle of Great Wall red wine to party. That was fun again! We all danced and sang. The video taken is so funny, but not really to be shown to anybody who was not part...

On my European birthday, a friend invited me to Merry Waterworld north of Beijing, a water amusement park with hot springs. Together with her daughter the three of us played water polo or just relaxed. In the evening I had a small dinner party with the extensive Frankonia-near German community.

Today then I was in the middle of THE Beijing event of the year for the first time: THE OLYMPICS. I had gotten a ticket for Diving (German: "Turmspringen") in the new Water Cube Stadium. Diving is a nice sport to watch: the sessions (today finals of women in 10m diving) are not too loong (in total 1.5 hours) and they do so many saltos and similar things. I was surrounded by the Chinese fans (see photo). Unfortunately, Germany was not participating. Guess who won? China! What an enthusiastic mood in the stadium! The strange thing was when I left the stadium in search for a cab to take me home there was a fully burning car on the road right in front of the main stadiums (including the Water Cube and the Bird's nest). I wonder why that was?