Media Day:

I got to ride in a Taipei cab yesterday for the first time...needless to say I won't be doing it again if it can be helped. Started off well enough we were going to the Media event that was suppose to be held the hotel down from us. When we got there however we were informed by some Japanese media people that it had moved to another place. That was fine we'd just grab a taxi there, BIG mistake. First we accidentally nick the cab from another party but they didn't mind, maybe they knew something we never. Anyway we start out and already the taxi is weaving in and out of traffic beeping her horn and basically driving like a maniac. After about 15 minutes of driving around I start wondering if she knows where she's going or taking us for a ride since she seems to circle back on herself and head down another street. After another 5 she pulls the car off the road leaving the meter running and tries to get directions to the place. Turns out she didn't have a sweet clue where we we had to do. Liz the interpreter with us happened to have a map and we eventually got to the stadium which still wasn't where we wanted to go but the lady pulled off, fet up we got out and attempted to walk away without paying..after all we never got where we were going.. I didn't think that would go over well and waited for the lady for come chase us down. Sure enough out she jumps shouting “money money” One of the arena security happens to be there so we flag him over. After a lot of talking and the kind help of a stranger we get everything figured out and make it to the media event where there is a large debate over what/who/how things were going to be streamed online. Sadly no photos from the escapade .


Romp with Marc, janice and genevieve:
I Happened to run into Marc and Genevieve while at breakfast and we all decided to head out to check out the town...which reminds me Genevieve stole me my map like she said she would I must get that back :P... Marc is a character to say the least I have about 3 dozen photos of just him being the biggest tourist in the world and scaring little kids. We Popped into the the New York New York shopping mall and poked around everything was to expensive but me and marc did have fun trying to get the Nokia people to unlock my phone so I could use the sim card I got, Alas the could not though.. not without taking it into the shop and even then it would have been a maybe. I did learn that Google Translator is pretty good as we communicated with all the Nokia tech people on it while we were in the store which was a great idea on Marcs part. Janice joined us there shortly after surviving the metro all by her lonesome :P From there we went to a temple which I would be able to name if I had my map but SOMEONE never gave it back! Lots of photos from there which will be up tomorrow most likely. Along the way we tried to find some of those cone hat things and failed... and I got a stamp with my initials carved.. BUT silly me I forgot to mirror image them so I got a backwards stamp.

ODE TO MARC!!!

The Rest:
One Two Three Four ( Gene, Me and Janice)
Me making a backwards stamp

Ton more @ my photobucket just scroll through em.. to long to link everything


Opening Ceremony:
Much the same as yesterdays ceremonies except with a few additions. Photos to follow. I was looking forward to some pizza when we returned until it was found out it was translation error and we in fact did not order/want pizza... McDonalds for me again.

Drums
Canada1
Canada2
Canada3
Canada4
Canada6
Canada7
Canada8
Fireworks
Aerials
River
Lilly
Singer1
Bike
SOUP!

Tomorrow:
gonna be shooting cycling in the AM at 6 since Richard wanted to shoot volleyball at 1pm photos to come.