Joy Day 15-Eye Candy Alert

Thanks to Joy for sharing your experiences in Beijing. It's been great!

Day 15-Eye Candy Alert
by Joy Dickson, Saturday August 23, 2008 at 10:21am

I just finished watching the Men's Diving Finals and I am proud to say that I have finally found "my baby daddy". My mission for the next few days is to find Juan Gillermo Uran(Columbia) and convince him to follow me back to the states. I mean after all he did not win a medal so what else does he have to do back in Columbia. And if he doesn't work out there is always the silver medalist from Russia.

Ok, I do have to say besides drooling over Juan Uran "Dickson", watching this guys compete was nail biting and exciting. It seemed like every time one of them dove into the water their rank changed. These guys were amazing. From the handstands, to the backwards somersaults, or the triple twists, it was just so cool to watch. It was also good to see a variety of competitors from different countries. They were from AUS, Russia, Mexico, US, UK, China, Cuba and Columbia.

I have to admit that I have always had a fear of diving from a standing position. I am a decent swimmer and can surface dive, and will not hesitate to jump off of a diving board. But head first? No way. My fear is so strong that I was apprehensive about watching the diving competitions. And visions of Greg Louganus (sp) hitting his head during the Olympics years ago kept popping into my head. But there is something about men in speedos that just keeps you glued to the TV.

Speaking of speedos, Adidas really needs to rethink about where they position their logo on the men's swim trunks. Front and center is not always the best place to put one's name and it seems to be taking the All Day I Dream About Sex thing a little too far. Especially when the person you are sponsoring might not be well endowed. TYR and Speedo put their logos on the side so one's eyes are not drawn to the middle. Perhaps, they should adopt the Australian position and just write it across the butt. That is the down side to men's diving you cannot hide anything and live Chinese coverage is not helpful. (Hopefully by the time you see the footage they would have edited the guy grabbing himself in the shower. I am mean really we don't have to see everything on TV).

Oh and Congrats to gold medalist Matt(AUS), not to be confused with the other Aussie Matt that has his belly button pierced and his eyebrows nicely arched. Now, I have seen some interesting things pierced before but this is the first man that I have ever seen with a pierced belly button. Hmmmm! The gold medalist Matt broke down and cried after he finished his dive. He just knew he had won. It has been so uplifting to see the athletes' reactions to winning. They all seem genuinely excited and amazed (and rightfully so) about what they have just accomplished. Some of the things that they can do is almost magical.

But the cutest thing was watching Thomas Daley(GBR) walk up to the edge of the board. He looked like he was barely twelve years old. ( I wonder if he has been badgered about his age, like the female Chinese gymnasts). He looked so scared before each dive. But he did very well.

Wow, tomorrow is the last day of the regular Olympics. But the Para Olympics begins on September 7th. I was speaking with a woman last night that works for the catering company for the athletes and she was saying that she is as excited about the ParaOlympics as the Olympics. We also talked about how unfortunate it is that Para Olympics is treated as an after thought, considering how competitive, skilled and motivated the athletes are. Unfortunately, I will be in the states when it starts but I am going to try and watch those competitions as much as possible.

For the past week, I have encountered signs that Beijing is beginning to get back into the swing of things. Last night at my friend, Wendy's( Wellesley Grad.) birthday party the restaurant manager told us we had too many people and she would not put a table together for us. She also got an attitude when we tried to insist she do it and walked off. Aaah gotta love good Beijing service. The street vendors are slowly coming back and harassing us to buy their wachee and sookusu. One guy got a kick out of me tellling him that I was not a lao wai (foreigner) but a zhong gou ren( a Chinese person).

And this morning I passed by a crowd gawking at two men screaming and yelling at each other in the middle of the street. I left before they came to blows. And about an hour ago, the police just yelled on the loud speaker at the owner of the restaurant in my building to move their tables inside or they would take them away. You see the government came along a month ago and removed all of their outdoor seating because " the foreigners are coming and it looks bad". I don't know about you but this foreigner and all of the ones that I know here like dinning outside during the summer.

Oh, and the old men with their belly's showing are back in full force. I also saw a man at the market this morning in his pajamas with a nice straw fedora on.(Forgive me but if you have time to put on a nice hat you have time to put on some clothes before you go outside) And people are beginning to spit on the street again. There is nothing like the sound of a Beijing man hacking up smog first thing in the morning. I have seen several women with more that three different colors and patterns on. The cabbies are beginning to drive like crazy again, cutting across traffic to make a u-turn and speeding up and slamming on the breaks,honking on their horns until you move out of the way. And lastly, I passed a group of migrant workers asleep on the street. All of this "Beijing flavor" was banned and/or disappeared during the Olympics and now that it is over, folks are going back to the way that life was before the world watched.

And now the my count down begins 8 more days left.