The Qingdao Olympic Village

The Olympic Village in Qingdao is obviously a remote village and one of a few scattered about the country that can’t compete in Beijing.  That worked to our advantage, as the air quality is much higher than that of Beijing, and the village was a brand new intercontinental 5 star hotel.  Much much nicer than the dorm like rooms of the Beijing Olympic Village.  The US team took up the entire 15^th floor, the non-favorite athletes all got a view of the city, whilst the team leader and all the pre-assigned favorites got a complete water view panorama.  I got room 1501, sharing with Scott our Physical Therapist, and the city view.  No complaints, I was stoked that the rooms were so nice and could check out the view from down the hall

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The dining hall was on the third floor of the building and you absolutely needed your accreditation to get entrance, I of course forgot mine the first few mornings! No talking my way out of it.  The food was decent, nothing special, a bit bland and not so flavorful, but was free and had a large variety.  The dining hall was open until 2 AM and you would never go hungary.  When I first arrived I had 2 days until the equipment draw would happen and then I’d be sailing again on the fushan bay in Qingdao.  So I went to the gym the first few days to recover from jet lag and get systems used to China.