My First Sports Pilgrimage

On Saturday, I was feeling restless. It was nice outside- a dry heat (at least comparatively!) and a nice breeze. So I decided to go exploring.

I wanted to see the bay, so I headed due east. I found myself joining the locals in a pilgrimage around the Shenzhen Bay Stadium, which was built for the Universiade. The sun blared down on all of us pilgrims, but I came prepared: I whipped out my umbrella like the locals do. Umbrellas sold here all have UV protection. You can easily tell the Westerners because they’re the only ones wearing sunglasses and not carrying umbrellas in the sun.

The first stop on the pilgrimage was this outdoor stage thing. It was covered, so people sat and ate picnic lunches or took pictures of the lake (kind of a man-made bay off the main bay). The lake had giant colored balls sitting on it which were icons of the Universiade. Looking northward was a great view of the stadium. So everyone got their picture taken with that as the background. I asked a young man to take mine since he was taking pictures of his friend. Then his friend wanted his picture taken with me! That’s the second time that’s happened; the first time was a young woman in Dongmen who linked arms with Alina and me for a picture. It makes me feel like a celebrity! Funny.

Then I made my way around the lake and up to the torch. It was awesome. It’s still burning. After that, I got a picture of the front of the stadium. They kindly had some sort of portapotties there (squatty potties, of course, but they did have real sinks!) I finally made it to the vendor’s avenue at the end of the pilgrimage. They could have made a fortune on selling water all around the area, but I survived. I also bought a couple Universiade souvenirs.

So ended my Universiade pilgrimage. But then was the game! Men’s volleyball, USA v. Turkey. My friends and I took taxis to get to the University, but we ended up touring the entire campus a couple times before we found the entrance to the gymnasium. Some of our friends had a taxi driver that knew the right place to take them, so they’d held seats for us. We were the only Westerners in the crowd. So we cheered loud and proud for the USA! Even though the Turkey team was pretty good looking…

USA won!

So ended my Universiade experience. The closest I’ll probably ever get to the Olympics. Now, I’m hooked though. I’m thinking my next world sports venture will be the soccer World Cup. Go, Mexico! I mean, USA…