Walking in the Steps of Giants

So by now everyone should have seen the opening ceremony, either live or on the replay at a more suitable time back in the States. We watched it live from Paul's Steak & Eggs, our favorite hangout, and were treated to Paul's rather nice 42-inch TV.

In a word, the ceremony was amazing. Because two of our group members won the opportunity to attend practices for the ceremony, we had an idea of what we were going to see. That didn't change the feeling that the ceremony was above and beyond any Olympic ceremony I can remember. I still get goosebumps thinking about Ali lighting the torch in Atlanta in '96, but the sets, the drums, and especially the boxes in the Chinese ceremony were beyond anything I had imagined they would be like.

We were all wondering who exactly the Chinese would choose for their torch-lighter, and we figured that it wouldn't be anyone that had already participated in the torch relay around the world. We were very wrong as the legendary Chinese gymnast (I didn't catch his name) took the torch again to light it. If you saw the ceremony live, you probably saw one of the only obvious screw ups in the ceremony when the torch-lighter sped past the scroll he was supposedly following. But it didn't matter, because the way that the Chinese lit the torch was as grand a spectacle as you could get. We worried for the lighter though, as that gout of flame had to have singed some of his hair and eyebrows off.

Oh, and did you know that China invented fireworks? Because there was no way you were going to leave that ceremony without that knowledge. They used fireworks in everything, and enormous ones at that. The giant's footsteps, 28 of them to show the travels that the modern Olympics have taken to get to Beijing, were a definite highlight. On our way to Paul's to watch the ceremony, a lot of roads were closed far away from the Bird's Nest, which caught us off guard. After seeing fireworks shoot off all over the city, we knew why.

I'm not big on these opening ceremonies and I've never gone out of my way to watch them. I still remember that glowing womb thing they did at Athens (I think it was Athens), and sadly I feel that's what a lot of countries do with the opening ceremonies, make a spectacle. However, China put on a good show, using very cool technology combined with crazy amounts of choreography to make a show that people will remember and use as an example for years to come. Bravo China, you did a great job.