The blue day blog

No luck. Though we saw the US softball team on the practice field (they waved to us!), we were unable to score any tickets to the game from scalpers. Rar.

The girls and I arrived at the venue on the 996 bus and proceeded to circle the area several times, keeping our eyes peeled for potential ticket-holders willing to sell. It’s very different from American sporting events, where there are loud, obnoxious guys hawking tickets from every street corner for a mile around the stadium. For one thing, there is a police/guard about every 50 feet surrounding the venue. This is a big deterrent for scalpers. I mean, really, a slap on the wrist from a campus police officer or the Chinese government confronting you about your illegal activities? … Big difference there.

We’re walking along, and all of a sudden, this guy just sort of appears out of nowhere and asks if we’re looking for tickets. We tell him yes and he starts walking with us, covertly telling us that he has two passes for the 9:30 softball game. Well, we were there for the US-Venezuela game that didn’t start until noon. But we also wanted three tickets. We told him we’d call him if we couldn’t find any more and went on our way.

An hour or so passed, with no other encounters. We see Ali (our scalper) approaching from the other side of the street, calling us on his cell phone. He tells us that since the game is almost over, he’ll just give us the tickets. We told him we really just wanted to see the US after he informed us of his ticket source.

Apparently, some Norwegian big-shot has lots of event tickets and employs Chinese people who can speak foreign languages to sell them around the venues for a significant markup, and Ali is one of such employees. Pretty smart. Ali told us he makes a set amount every day regardless of the tickets he sells.

So, Ali called his ‘boss’ and said we could come with him to the hotel where the boss was staying to get the tickets. The Doubletree Beijing is no CUC. This place was so fancy; a Coke was 38 RMB. I can buy a bottle for 2.5 on campus, in comparison, and for 5 at the cycling venue. Val, Kelsey and I waited in the lounge while Ali went to find our tickets. After what seemed like an eternity, he came back and told us there were no tickets available for that game. I also asked about the women’s triathlon, which I am dying to see, but he didn’t have that either.

Ali apologized profusely, and even offered money for our troubles. We didn’t want that from our new friend, just a photo to commemorate our day. Hopefully, he will come across some tickets in the coming days and let us know about them. He left us with the advice to buy tickets off of the Chinese, and not from people like his boss, who was ‘cold-hearted and only cared of money’.

We said goodbye to our new friend and cabbed it back to the softball venue for one more walk around the field, where the game had just started. Still nothing. We headed back toward the subway station, where I ran across a few Chinese men who were carrying some tickets. I asked if they were softball tickets and they laughed and said no. They rattled off some sports and one happened to be triathlon. I think I almost fell over I was so excited.

I asked to see the tickets and, sure enough, three tickets for the women’s triathlon were right there. I offered to buy one on the spot. The guy said okay, for 100 yuan. I countered with 75, just to see, and he said no. They said they wanted to see all three for 300. I said, I’ll buy them for 250. Then they showed me that they had tickets to another event that day; that they couldn’t even go to the triathlon. But when I offered the money for the tickets, just like they asked, they wouldn’t take it. I don’t know what their deal was but I was pretty upset. It was just another disappointment to add to the day’s list.

Right then we met another friend, Hannah, from Canada, who is in China for a few months visiting a relative as part of a one year, three-month trip around the world. She was really nice and we shared a cab to the subway station.

The girls and I decided we needed a pick-me-up and stopped at Yonganli for the LG Twin Towers Mall. We got sandwiches (so good) and splurged on Frappucinos. It made me feel a little better, I think.

As far as weather goes, this is the nicest day that we have had, thanks to the weekend storms. I could actually see blue sky. Not the color-corrected blue that you’ll see on your Olympic TV coverage, but actual blue with nice white clouds. It almost felt like home. Almost.

Back to work tomorrow… goodnight!