Sooo, we are getting closer - in the meantime we have had some days of intensive training (days of 14 - 15 hrs are normal) at the different venues we will be hosting guests. A trial run involves site visits during which we do the tour, find the parking places (which change every day), restaurants and lavatories on the route, rehearse on timing, practice walkie talkies and communication etc.. all to ensure that when we host our guests all runs smooth and we can make the tours as pleasurable as possbile. Venues covered besides the Olympic Green - where the famous "birds nest" and "watercube" are the different stadiums for hockey, boxing, basketball and beach volleyball. Can you guess which are on the pictures?
Unfortunatelly BOCOG has not opened them up yet so all visits are from the outside. Of the leisure tours - we have four - one of which you saw before - the Houhai. The other three are the Forbidden City, The Summer Palace and the Great Wall, all wonderfull locations. At each one of them there are little surprises for the guests - like boat rides, cablecars and tobogan rides, lunch at exclusive locations that are not accessible to the public and opera singers dressed as Mongolians on the Great Wall !!! These should make for an experience NEVER to forget. Today was also the opening of the Olympic Hospitality Centre (OHC) on the Olympic Green - a fantastic building (biggest of all the Sponsors and by far the most stylish) where guests will be "watered" and fed before and after visiting Opening and Closing Ceremonies and after any other visit to the Olympic Green. Further more tours will include a visit to Lenovo Research and Development Centre (LRD) where there will be a business summit, local artisans showing off their skills and Olympic Sports for the guests to try. Also the Lenovo Showcase is here - showcasing the history of Lenovo in 3D and many interactive experiences.
The weather, walking and humidity is also causing a small transformation in myself - my feet have blown up like balloons! so yesterday night I had the treat of a footmassage - a super luxurious massage parlour two blocks away where 98RMB (aprox 10 Euro) bought me a 90 minutes foot massage !! All well in the morning but at the pase we have have walked today they are back where they started - size elephant - but the massage was good!! Our first live run also happened today as our Lenovo CMO arrived at the airport and tonight our CEO with his guests. So far so good and we have not lost anyone - fingers crossed.
Tomorrow another practice day awaits us when we will finetune our walkie talky skills - quite complex when they are in chinese - believe me - and do another run at the Forbidden City. The day after is all live as we expect about 68 guests !!! That will be something !! The airport is enourmous and incredibly busy as athelets and their families arrive - lots of press and then all the guests and agencys / sponsor collecting them - a sea of lolipops. Hope we get all safely to the Hotel . . . . yeah - sure we will. Time for some shut eye now and will see how soon I can report back again. Nigty night xxx
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