Spectacular beginning
Before I get into the opening ceremonies, I want to caution you that I might spoil something for you with the photos I'm about to present.
If you don't want to know anything about the Beijing Summer Olympics Opening Ceremonies, that you can watch on NBC, then don't read any more. You should know, however, that you'll have to slot a pretty large amount of time, if NBC shows the unabridged version.
Okay, so here's the thing: they were spectacular, a stunning combination of sounds, colors, images, music and special effects that allowed you to forget that you were sitting in a seat of sweat (which everyone in National Stadium was, it was that hot and humid).
If ever an opening ceremony captured the cultural essence of its host country, this was it.
Here are some other observations before I get into photos:
The scroll plays a very prominent role in China's history and, thus, the ceremonies.
I need to take a Geography lesson because, frankly, there were far too many countries that I had never heard of. Okay, there were 204 nations introduced, so it's unlikely anyone, outside of a teacher, would recognize them all. But . . . Uzbekistan? Mauritius?Eritrea? Burkina Faso? Azerbaijan? Cote d'Ivoire?
Enough already!
Nice outfits for the most part. The U.S. was nattily attired. Israel went for the casual Friday look, and I don't think it worked. And then there was some nation (sorry, won't mention the name to protect the innocent) that must have had Cruela DeVille design the women's clothes. You'll know it when you see it. Yikes!
The grand finale, the lighting of the torch, reminded me of Peter Pan. You'll understand when you see it.
Okay, here's some photos:
Ah, the Olympic Rings.
This caught my attention:
A reminder of all the children in the world:
These drummers, all 2008 of them, were incredible. You'll see:
Team USA marching in:
Every athlete gathered on the field:
The flame:
I've got a couple of videos I'll try to get to you later, but I've got something else to do first.
Later
Posted at 02:03 PM
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