Friday was another packed day in China. We started out the morning by taking a taxi to the Summer Palace. I think I may shift my Beijing commentary from the bathroom situation to the taxi and map situation. We think something is funky with Chinese maps because our journeys to new spots in the city never seem to go well. The Chinese a) don't understand our requests in English (which is understandable) b) don't understand us when we try to say the word in Chinese c) don't seem to understand what we want when we point on the map and d) take us in what appear to be roundabout crazy ways on the roads. Then there is the actual ride. Last night we were in a taxi and I closed my eyes, covered my head and/or made funny noises every two minutes or so. There is no rhyme or reason when it comes to the lanes, turns, right of way, or pedestrians.
Okay, sorry, back to the day.....we spent the morning walking around the Summer Palace. There is a huge man made lake in the middle that took over 100,000 workers to widen and deepen. This giant parklike area is filled with pavillions, temples, and halls and was a place where the empress would stay instead of the Forbidden City. After climbing a ginormous hill with a bazillion steps, we wound our way down and took a ferry across the lake. It was nice to see water again.
Shane line dancing with some locals.
One of the pavillions (or is it a temple?) with the lake down below.
Our dragonboat ferry
Randy sitting next to Tracy and Terry and responding to my request to smile
The view from the lake of where we had just been (yes, at the top)
The next adventure was to buy Randy a new camera. After his photo card froze, his camera shutter broke and he was out of commission. Needless to say, this was not acceptable before Dave's matches. We went to a CRAZY electronics mall and after Randy chose a vendor, they took us up to the 14th floor to a small room with couches. Negotiating with someone who speaks broken English is not as fun as you might think. Then we had to deal with the payment part of the adventure which included long hallways with closed doors and crowded hot elevators. Finally, after what seemed like the entire day, Randy walked away with his new camera and he is very happy. This led to another taxi adventure of which I will not bore you.
Later in the day, we finally ended up back at the Tennis Center. Dave played in the Quads Singles Semifinals and in the flavor of the 2005 Seahawks-Steelers Superbowl, things did not go as planned.
Dave will be playing for the bronze medal today against his doubles partner, Nick Taylor. We will be there cheering as loud as we can and then will spend the rest of the day watching other matches before Dave and Nick's doubles gold medal match against the Israelis.
After we got back to the hotel (this was the taxi ride that scared me the most), we wandered our neighborhood and had some authentic Chinese food.
There are some alleyways around here that would be fun to explore, but no eating mystery meat for this girl!
David Wagner, resident of Portland, Oregon, has won two medals in the 2008 Beijing Paralympics. Wagner beat his opponent, Nick Taylor, in the Bronze Medal match in three sets. Later in the afternoon, Wagner and Taylor competed as a dynamic duo winning a gold medal for Quad Doubles beating the Israelis in three sets. Congratulations to Wagner and Taylor! More details to follow as it is after midnight and this reporter needs to get to bed....
Shane line dancing with some locals.
One of the pavillions (or is it a temple?) with the lake down below.
Our dragonboat ferry
Randy sitting next to Tracy and Terry and responding to my request to smile
The view from the lake of where we had just been (yes, at the top)
Dave will be playing for the bronze medal today against his doubles partner, Nick Taylor. We will be there cheering as loud as we can and then will spend the rest of the day watching other matches before Dave and Nick's doubles gold medal match against the Israelis.
There are some alleyways around here that would be fun to explore, but no eating mystery meat for this girl!
They beat their opponents and move on to the finals this weekend. Watching doubles in wheelchair tennis was pretty awesome. The players are in constant motion moving their chairs around the courts. I haven't seen anything like it before.
We have not been able to see other events as we had hoped. It is difficult to get tickets and the venues are far apart. Also, we spend a lot of the day at the Tennis Center with Dave. We were going to watch swimming tomorrow night, but Dave's singles semifinals match could be at the same time. We get to see most events on TV if we are in the hotel long enough to have it on.
Today was a sun filled day at the Olympic Tennis Center. The process to get in and seated was much smoother. Dave's match was awesome. He plays again in the semifinals for singles on Friday. Tomorrow is his first match for doubles. He will play with his partner, Nick Taylor, on Center Court. He said it is on live tv, but I am assuming that is in China. If I find out anything different, I will post it on the blog. Nick won today in singles with a tiebreaker in the third set which was great. There will be two Americans in the quad semifinals (but not playing each other).
Of course, hearing that the matches were canceled was very disappointing and we were all a little deflated. Thanks to technology, I text messaged Dave to ask him when he would be playing his match. He told us that the match was not in fact canceled and to head down to center court. The problem was that all of the thousands of Chinese volunteers helping at the gates had not heard the message and would not let us through. Thanks to Shane, we eventually got through the security gate but then they would not let us through the ticket gate. We were able to get some support from inside the tennis center (coaches, managers, etc.) and they ended up letting us in because we were family. I guess they had decided earlier in the morning that the tennis would continue but they would not allow spectators. So Dave had his first Beiijing 2008 Paralympic match on center court with very few spectators.
This board is in the middle of the Tennis Center and lists the matches as well as who moves forward. You can see that Dave is ranked number one in the world!
These are the box seats we were able to sit in. It was awesome to be this close to the court. The passes also proved useful later in the day when they let us to the front of the line at the Olympic Center (the Tennis Center is in a different part than the Bird's Nest, Swimming Cube, etc.). 
This was my first time watching Dave play tennis and it was nervewracking for me. The match was close at times and I moved from the box seats we had up to the landing so I could pace.
