Getting My Credentials and Uniform and Meeting Feng

Had a diet coke for breakfast (as my coffee). The remote controls for the air conditioners, television, and the control panel for the washing machine are in Chinese. For those of my fellow UCSF faculty members who have been to Tokyo University of Pharmacy and Life Science to teach, you will appreciate what that means. For those who have not been, it means we can’t figure out what button does what.

Michele got CNN International on TV, which is the only English channel we can get. I exclaimed, “Good on you!” I haven’t heard or said that phrase since I left Sydney, 8 years ago, and have no idea how that came out of me, but obviously the Aussie influence of Michele has already been drawn out of me. We have also picked up a wireless signal from somewhere, which makes this blog possible. I hope it continues to be available.

We took a taxi to go to the police station to register. Foreigners who do not stay in a hotel must register with the local police within 24 hours. It was a challenge to communicate with the taxi driver as to where we wanted to go, even though we had someone at the apartment building write it down in Chinese.

We also went to the Doping Control Command Center, where we were told to get our credentials. We could not enter without credentials, so we had to phone when we arrived, and someone came out to meet us. Michele was given her credentials, but they told me I needed to go to the National Aquatics Center (NAC) to get my credentials and my uniform. We had the people there write on the back of my business card the address and directions to the DC Command Center and to the Aquatics Center so I could give it to the taxi drivers to show them where to go. We took another taxi to the NAC, but Michele couldn’t go in with me because her credentials did not allow access to the NAC, and I sent her home rather than have her wait for me. She made sure I was comfortable with that. Immediately after I got out of the taxi, a young man and women walked up and asked me if I was Peter Ambrose. Hooray! They gave me my credentials to get in, and they took me to the Doping Control station. There were quite a few young people in the DC station. They have been training since July 5, every day without a day off. Most were going to be chaperones (about 20 of them) and 12 of us were to be Doping Control Officers. I was then given my uniform – three shirts, two pairs of pants, a hat, side pack, socks, shoes, jacket, and water bottle. I was then told to report to the NAC on Friday morning and was told that I also had some sort of meeting at the Doping Control Command Center on Friday afternoon. I met Feng (“Fung”) who told me she will be my partner in the DC station at the NAC. I was given a bag of McDonalds for lunch – a chicken sandwich and nuggets and a bottle of water. Afterwards, a young man (Chen) asked me if he could show me around. How nice. So, he showed me all around the Aquatics Center. At the end of the day, I asked him to show me where to get a taxi, and he walked a long distance with me to where taxis were allowed because access to the NAC was limited. I was very impressed and appreciative of what he did. He will be a chaperone and the check-in officer. He told me that he graduated from a university in Beijing in International Relations and he wants to go to graduate school at UC Berkeley. I gave the taxi the note with the address that Michele gave me, and it worked like a dream.

Tried on my uniform at home, and the pants are about 4 inches too long, so I will get them hemmed somewhere. They zip off at the knees to make shorts, so I will wear them as shorts until I get them tailored. The shirts fit fine, and the shoes seem a bit tight, but will do. I didn’t bother trying on the hat, the jacket, the hip pack, the socks or the water bottle.