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Yunnan v Yorkshire

16/8/2012

Not only did China overall do pretty well in the Olympic medal count, but athletes from my province of Yunnan managed to get a handful of medals including a gold (ChenDing, left in the 20k walk), bronze and team gold (Sun YuJie, in fencing) and team gold (Guo Weiyang in the men's gymnastics).

Not quite as good as the UK county of Yorkshire, mind you, which would have come 12th in the medal table all by itself had it competed as a country, with 12 medals including 7 golds!

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Bean there, dawn that

29/7/2012

Despite having to rouse myself at 4am, I thoroughly enjoyed the Olympic Opening Ceremony - very quirky and eccentric. Quite a few students told me they preferred it to Beijing's blockbuster event four years ago. As one said, "We had 6000 dancers, but you had James Bond, Harry Potter and Mr Bean"! So far it seems like our athletes are struggling to maintain the good start, but it's early days, I guess. Meanwhile, Dorta has been getting into the Olympic spirit and wishing there was a giraffe-riding event (or possibly the high jump?).

Today was the last day of my term - the end of a busy three weeks of double lessons. Jiajia and I are off to Bangladesh next week for a bit of an off-beat trip and country #95 for me.

An olympic disaster?

27/7/2012

It's been quite a year for Britain, what with the Jubilee celebrations, respectability at the European Championships, glorious failure in Eurovision, success on the Tour de France and (nearly) at Wimbledon. Now all eyes are on the Olympics which are finally upon us.

My students and fellow foreign teachers are already teasing me about the various cock-ups; lack of security staff, people threatening to strike, wrong flags, rain, buses getting lost and beds being too short for athletes. Actually, it's been looking a bit embarrassing ever since the logo was unveiled. Why didn't they go with something more like this (designed by a student at a friend's UK school)? Oh well. Fingers crossed for the Opening Ceremony (4am our time - but I'll be watching!), and then let's hope our athletes do as well as in Beijing. And let's hope that Chinese TV doesn't spend the whole tournament following only table-tennis, badminton and diving!

Torchy feely

15/7/2012

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The upcoming Olympics is even getting mentioned in China of late, though I get most of the hype from the BBC website. As the torch tours around Britain a number of my friends and relatives have reported seeing it near where they live or work. None more so than my nephew Louie and niece Daisy who, as you can see, went all out to cheer it along its way as it passed through Winchester last week. What a great effort!

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Losing weights

13/7/2012

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The unusually high amount of sports and exercise I've been getting involved in over the last few months leaves me permanently achey but buzzing! Whether it's 5-a-side football (once, so far), badminton (at least once a week), running (6-8km, 2-3 times a week) or weights (1-2 times a week) I haven't felt this fit, or weighed so little, in many years. Euro footie, Wimbledon and the Olympics help with the spirit - even Dorta has been doing her bit. I can't honestly say I'm 100% well these days but, with my various meds, I've been well enough to work up a sweat, which helps with the stresses of doing double lessons during July.

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More medalling

28/10/2011

I was explaining the word "coincidence" to my students the other day when one of them gave me an unbelievable example. At the Beijing Olympics, China won 51 gold, 21 silver and 28 bronze medals. That's 51-21-28, or 512128. Earlier the same year, Wenchuan (S.W. China) experienced a huge earthquake killing 68,000 people. When exactly? 21st May at 1.28pm. That's 5/12, 1:28, or 512128. I was mightily impressed ...until, that is, I checked it online. The earthquake hit at 2:28pm. So China really needed an extra silver medal! Close, though!

Yunnan v Yorkshire

Bean there, dawn that

An olympic disaster?

Torchy feely

Losing weights

More medalling

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