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nlagalle · 19th August 2008, 01:10 PM

Set up time:

I won't give a daily blow by blow account of our set up, but will highlight some of the things we noticed along the way..

We got up around 8am on the first day. after the long day getting here i actually felt pretty good. The hotel itself doesn't have a restaurant or room service. Down on the bottom level of the complex is the Media food court, complete with a Macca's (although we found out it doesn't open for another 9 days).

We wander downstairs and have a look at the slim pickings. and it is pretty slim as the MPC is pretty much deserted at the moment. There is really only Techs there setting up. Much to my surprise there was Sultana Bran. the hot food left a bit to be desired, so I stuck to the cereal, fruit, juice and coffee. We have breakfast vouchers so we pile up the food. The food court seats a couple of thousand people. During Games time there is over 35,000 media and broadcast people here so everything is large!

So it is time to move into our office.. Everything you order for the games (office space, chairs, tables, phones, data comms etc) all get ordered through the Rate card. It's like a one stop shop to order everything you can't bring over. we ship all our own computer and networking gear and order lines etc. We find the rate card office and get the ball rolling. The Chinese love their paperwork and there are plenty of forms to sign! We get it all sorted and head off to our office upstairs. The MPC is a huge building with over 16 floors, but only 4 are being used for the Games. To give you an idea of length, it's about as long as Jeff's Shed in Melbourne. the IBC (International Broadcast Centre) makes Jeff's Shed look small!

Our office is very plain - only the furniture is in there. I call our freight carrier and advise them we are in the office so they can deliver our road cases - 4 of them in total. They expect an after lunch delivery. This suits us as we get our delivery of SIM cards, Datacards etc. So it will take some time to sort it all out.

One thing we quickly notice it isn't 1 chinese person doing something, it's at least 5 or 6. The network people cam in to set up our leased lines and there was a flurry of them around the place. However they were very efficient and had our main leased line up and running quickly and would come back to install the venue to office links we had ordered.

Our gear arrived after lunch as promised and we bgan the huge task of ubnpacking and setting up. At the same time we were arranging for delivery of our rack cabinet for the switches and servers. we had to get the gear delivered before Wednesday night as Thursday was lockdown - when the place was swept for bombs and full security was in place. Up until this time anyone could enter provided they had a bump in pass.

We have over 30 staff coming to Beijing, although we weren't setting up 30 workstations we had a lot cabling to run and also run power. by then end of the day the Rack had arrived and we were well ahead of schedule. we called it a night around 7.30pm and went off to dinner.

The manager of the bar told us there was a good restaurant just up the road called the "Daily Duck" so we thought we'd give the local cuisine a bash. so after a 10 minutes stroll up the road we were there. it was interesting getting "outside the fence" as we came to call it because inside was so sterile, but cross the road and you were amonsgt the people.

So our first taste of local food was at "the duck". We walked in to be swarmed by waitress chanting "Nei How" at us. The ushered us to a table where we were given two menus that were about the size of large photo album and just as thick! Now i had always read about the Engrish and Chinglish etc, but had never seen it myself. This menu was a hoot. I've gotta go back before i leave and take some photos. There were things like: extremely good perch - better than the normal perch, something that burns the stomach and so on.we were having a good old laugh reading it.

In the end we settled on the ribs, calamari, some veges and rice. We also discovered there was no duck left.. Seems like you need to get in early to get the duck! And I love the beer here too! $2 for a 600ml bottle! although they jsut don't serve it cold enough for my liking. so all up with a few beers, dinner set us back about $15 each!

We ended up back at the bar later that night where we met a couple of people from the OBS (Olympic broadcast Service). Funnily enough we saw them at the Duck earlier on too! It was quite pleasant sitting outside in their "beer garden" having a few quiet ones. Although their quiet ones are a bit pricey at around $7 for a pint.

Tomorrow is our last quiet day before the first wave of our crew arrive in 8 people are coming in tomorrow night.

19th August 2008, 01:10 PM	#3 (permalink)
nlagalle Member Join Date: May 2007 Location: Melbourne Member of: QF SG, DJ, PC Gold, SPG Gold, Rydges Posts: 580	Re: Beijing Olympics 2008 Set up time: I won't give a daily blow by blow account of our set up, but will highlight some of the things we noticed along the way.. We got up around 8am on the first day. after the long day getting here i actually felt pretty good. The hotel itself doesn't have a restaurant or room service. Down on the bottom level of the complex is the Media food court, complete with a Macca's (although we found out it doesn't open for another 9 days). We wander downstairs and have a look at the slim pickings. and it is pretty slim as the MPC is pretty much deserted at the moment. There is really only Techs there setting up. Much to my surprise there was Sultana Bran. the hot food left a bit to be desired, so I stuck to the cereal, fruit, juice and coffee. We have breakfast vouchers so we pile up the food. The food court seats a couple of thousand people. During Games time there is over 35,000 media and broadcast people here so everything is large! So it is time to move into our office.. Everything you order for the games (office space, chairs, tables, phones, data comms etc) all get ordered through the Rate card. It's like a one stop shop to order everything you can't bring over. we ship all our own computer and networking gear and order lines etc. We find the rate card office and get the ball rolling. The Chinese love their paperwork and there are plenty of forms to sign! We get it all sorted and head off to our office upstairs. The MPC is a huge building with over 16 floors, but only 4 are being used for the Games. To give you an idea of length, it's about as long as Jeff's Shed in Melbourne. the IBC (International Broadcast Centre) makes Jeff's Shed look small! Our office is very plain - only the furniture is in there. I call our freight carrier and advise them we are in the office so they can deliver our road cases - 4 of them in total. They expect an after lunch delivery. This suits us as we get our delivery of SIM cards, Datacards etc. So it will take some time to sort it all out. One thing we quickly notice it isn't 1 chinese person doing something, it's at least 5 or 6. The network people cam in to set up our leased lines and there was a flurry of them around the place. However they were very efficient and had our main leased line up and running quickly and would come back to install the venue to office links we had ordered. Our gear arrived after lunch as promised and we bgan the huge task of ubnpacking and setting up. At the same time we were arranging for delivery of our rack cabinet for the switches and servers. we had to get the gear delivered before Wednesday night as Thursday was lockdown - when the place was swept for bombs and full security was in place. Up until this time anyone could enter provided they had a bump in pass. We have over 30 staff coming to Beijing, although we weren't setting up 30 workstations we had a lot cabling to run and also run power. by then end of the day the Rack had arrived and we were well ahead of schedule. we called it a night around 7.30pm and went off to dinner. The manager of the bar told us there was a good restaurant just up the road called the "Daily Duck" so we thought we'd give the local cuisine a bash. so after a 10 minutes stroll up the road we were there. it was interesting getting "outside the fence" as we came to call it because inside was so sterile, but cross the road and you were amonsgt the people. So our first taste of local food was at "the duck". We walked in to be swarmed by waitress chanting "Nei How" at us. The ushered us to a table where we were given two menus that were about the size of large photo album and just as thick! Now i had always read about the Engrish and Chinglish etc, but had never seen it myself. This menu was a hoot. I've gotta go back before i leave and take some photos. There were things like: extremely good perch - better than the normal perch, something that burns the stomach and so on.we were having a good old laugh reading it. In the end we settled on the ribs, calamari, some veges and rice. We also discovered there was no duck left.. Seems like you need to get in early to get the duck! And I love the beer here too! $2 for a 600ml bottle! although they jsut don't serve it cold enough for my liking. so all up with a few beers, dinner set us back about $15 each! We ended up back at the bar later that night where we met a couple of people from the OBS (Olympic broadcast Service). Funnily enough we saw them at the Duck earlier on too! It was quite pleasant sitting outside in their "beer garden" having a few quiet ones. Although their quiet ones are a bit pricey at around $7 for a pint. Tomorrow is our last quiet day before the first wave of our crew arrive in 8 people are coming in tomorrow night.