I Luff Dogs.. But Not Their Meat!

I love cute, tiny, short haired dogs.  In China, you can only have small dogs as if they are bigger than the allowable dog measurement set by the government, they have the authority to keep your dog and kill it.  So.. most dogs in my neighbourhood are small.

Anyway, as a dog lover, I can’t understand how people can stand to eat dog meat.  I remember once after church, Marco and I were walking along the west gate of Chaoyang Park looking for a place to eat.  We entered a Korean restaurant and was looking at the menu.  Marco chose something based on the picture.  When I asked him if he was sure, he replied, “Why? It looks good!”  I told him, “You want to eat dog meat?”  After telling him that’s it’s dog meat, he veered away from that page and ordered other stuff.

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Beijing Olympics: Day 8-10 for Team Philippines

Sorry for the delay in updates. It’s either I’m catching up on sleep or I’m stuck at the Nest with no access. You might wonder how come my update is for day 8-10 right? Well.. Team Philippines is taking a rest in Day 9 & 10 so I just bundle it up into one.

Day 8 in Beijing saw the 2nd blue sky day. I had to come in early as I will watch the boxing matches in the evening. I’m a bit sad to have missed Henry Dagmil’s long jump preliminaries last night.

Henry Dagmil’s entry to long jump was not by qualifying any of the matches but as a requirement made by the IAAF. They required us to send two athletes which we did and both for long jump. Henry entered the event with a personal best of 7.99m. He placed 34th in a field of 38 and missed his best by 0.41m.  He achieved 7.58m in his first jump and fouled the next two jumps.

Team Philippines will be back on Tuesday with long jumper Marestella Torres jumping into action at 9:40am. I’ll take my morning break in time to see her jump and hopefully can get some good shots to post here.

Beijing Olympics: Day 7 for Team Philippines

Day 7 in Beijing. The sun is out and the weather is perfect! Today’s the start of the athletic events and the Olympic park is teeming with people. They even had to control the crowd going in the McDonalds shop after the games.

At 11:15am, I got the chance to watch my first Olympic match, the Women’s Artistic Gymnastics Individual All-Around Final. I’ve been a fan of gymnastics since I was young watching Nadia Comaneci putting perfect 10 performances in almost all the events. Today, I watched two US athletes take the gold and silver medal from the Chinese who has been dominating in this sport for the past few days. Nastia Liukin got the gold after performing very well in the beam and uneven bars. Shawn Johnson sneaked in to second with a difficult move in Vault and a flawless performance in Floor Exercise. Yang Yilin placed third after a dismal performance in the Floor Exercise and Vault. It was quite an experience as it’s too difficult to track the athletes as all four apparatus are used one after the other. However, I’m just too happy to be able to see it live and US win.

As for Team Philippines, diver Shiela Mae Perez placed 23 out of a field of 30 and scored 251.15 in the preliminaries. She’s 122.75 points behind Chinese diving princess Guo Jing Jing. In Swimming, Christel Simms was seen in action in Heat #6 of the 50m freestyle. She placed 4th in her heat clocking in at 26.64 seconds. This is slower than her qualifying time of 26.31 seconds. Another swimmer Ryan Arabejo, swam his best and placed third in his heats in the 1500m freestyle clocking in at 15:42.27, slower than his qualifying time of 15:39.86.

Beijing Olympics : Harry Tanamor’s Schedule

I met Harry for the first time during the luncheon meeting hosted by Pres. Arroyo at the Asia Hotel in Beijing. My first impression of him was he’s a simple, humble man who doesn’t like attention and respects people. He has muscles which any man could envy but he looks so slim that a wind might blow him away. Well, what do you expect from someone competing in light flyweight division. They all can’t be more than 48 kg.

As for their group, there are 29 boxers and preliminaries will start on the 13th of August. 3 boxers drew bye and won’t see action till the 16th. For Harry, should he win all his matches, his schedule will be like this:

13 August 19:00 to 22:30 – We will see Harry in action against Manyo Plange of Ghana at 815pm (moved from 845pm).  Outcome.. Harry lost 3 to 6 against Ghana.. 😦

Of Rehearsals & Security – Part 2

They held another dress rehearsal last Saturday for the opening ceremonies and this one was much better than Wednesday.  There were fireworks which made me giddy like a kid and the opening act was “WOW”.  I missed the opening act last Wednesday so I made it a point to really watch it that night.  I wasn’t disappointed, I will add that act as one of my favorites!  The broadcast show on the TV inside was much better this time but it’s so irritating to see “Not for Broadcast” on the middle of the screen.  I guess they’re paranoid because of Korea’s SBS TV Network’s coverage.

The show started at 8:08 pm.. and there was even a countdown with matching fireworks when the clock stroke 8:08.  No downpours marred the dress rehearsal so all acts were completed.  4 batches of fireworks were lit and the last one was at 10:02 pm.  According to the news, the fireworks they lit last Saturday was just a third of the fireworks display which we will see during the opening ceremonies.  I can’t wait to see the full display!  I heard they will form letters in the air just like in Sydney.

Earlier that evening around 6pm, the different provinces of China performed acts which represent their provinces.  It lasted for an hour and my friend was impressed with the Hong Kong dancers.