For those of you up-to-date with the blog, you will know that today's morning was softball. There are always two games each session. The First was China vs. Japan, which is a big rivalry. We decided to split up today since I wanted to go to softball first. Christina did not arrive at the venue until the end of the second game. She had transportation problems that I will let her blog about. She was ready for a beer by 11 a.m. today.

The worst part about her arriving late was she saw a shortened game. When one team is ahead by seven runs at the end of the 5th inning, they stop the game. Mercy rule you could call it. US was up by seven at the end of the fifth on some key hitting and the marvelous pitching Jenny Finch. The US softball team has a nice tradition after the game. They come to a fenced area behind the stadium and do a "meet and greet". This is mainly for the players to catch up to the friends and family and say hi since they are sequestered in the Olympic village with little play time.

My dream came true today as Jenny Finch, the pitcher for today, stopped to have her picture taken with me. She also signed my ticket. We asked her to do this since we did the same thing in Athens, so now I have two pictures of Jenny and me.

We took a taxi to the other side of the city - when I say other side, I mean a trip. It cost us 60 yuan which is about 10 US dollars. In Philly the trip would cost a lot more. You have to show your destination to the driver in Chinese. Some of them know some English but it is usually limited to hello and thank you. If you show them where you are going in English, they get confused.

We stopped at the Today Show and had some fun times with the tech guys and met some more
Americans there. Matt Lauer was not on the show today, so no picture of Matt and Christina this year.

Tonight we went to the green for Track and Field and it was awesome. 90,000+ people -- mainly cheering for China. We saw the finals of the heptathlon. The US woman took bronze and seemed surprised at her finish. The highlight of the evening was the men's 100 meter finals. Usain Bolt cruised to a world record time. He even pulled up at the end of the race to "hot dog" it for a few strides and still got the world record.

An amazing day for our last days of games. We have plans to see either Beijing Opera or Acrobatics tomorrow and a lunch of Roast Duck -- the one meal I have missed so far. I haven't eaten anything real exotic. I have not had Scorpions, yet. I did have sauteed eel that was tasty and spicy.

Check in tomorrow - you never know what we will do.

Rick