opening ceremony night

Josh, my friend from Newcastle and I decided to go to Tiananmen Square for the Opening Ceremony. We assumed that there would be big screens there. There weren't.

Getting there was a hassle. Well no, not getting there. The cab dropped us off just around the corner, and having explored a bit before, I knew exactly how to get there. There were a few problems. The police were blocking off every way to get to the square, for reason I could not see. They told us to wait for a minute. After about ten minutes, we decided to subvert 'the man,' and walked a longer way around. We got into the square through a special media entry. Josh had his accreditation with him (note: we're not actually accredited journalists). I didn't. But I did have my kind of professional looking camera with me, and as they waved him through and tried to stop me, I pointed to him and said "with him." I couldn't really believe that it worked!

While it was busy, it wasn't as full as I thought it might be. In one part of it, there was a bit of a chant going on. People were jumping up and down and waving little Chinese flags. It was pretty intense. 

But, there were no big screens. So we got out of there and hot footed it back to the uni where we watched the rest of the ceremony on a big screen in our favourite restaurant with some other Newcastle people.