Olympic SOCCER Game!

Many of the Olympic soccer games are being held here in Shanghai, including the quarter-finals and the finals. In the spirit of being here for this historical event (the Olympics), we decided to take Brandon to see a real soccer game at the Shanghai Stadium! There were two games tonight, Korea vs. Honduras and Belgium vs. New Zealand...the ticket price included both games! :) Allen left work early and we headed to the Stadium...

It was a GREAT night to go to a soccer game. The Stadium is not a covered building, thus with air conditioning (like in Phoenix). But, we had a summer storm passing through today and the sky had been overcast all day. By the time we got to the games, it was late afternoon. Our driver dropped us off where all the action was and we proceeded to the gates of the Stadium. There were TONS of people, but absolutely NO STRESS. Everyone moved to where they needed to be pretty efficiently.

Don't get me wrong...it was STILL HOT as sin with the extra humidity of the passing storm. It looked like you really COULD cut it with a knife...I swear (see night picture above)! But, at least we didn't have to deal with the blaring sun in addition to the humidity. Since Korea was playing in the first game, the Stadium was packed with fans rooting for their "brothers". I thought it was great, because Brandon picked "red" as the team he wanted to root for, which was Korea. So, while he was rooting for the "red" team, he could follow the game and his "team" with an extra bundle of exuberance from the thousands of fans sitting around us. It was GREAT! Korea won, 1-0.

We got GREAT seats too! It turns out that when you purchase the tickets, the computer does a "lottery" as to where you will sit in the Stadium...you just have to specify how many seats you want together. We got great seats...high above the field, so we could see absolutely everything with zero obstacles in front of us. We definitely got lucky!

The actual official Olympic employees were so helpful the entire way, often stopping us to say "hello" in English to Brandon. They were SO pleased when he responded by saying "hello" in Chinese, "Ni Hao". They would exclaim and laugh and encourage him to say other words. They loved it! Again, people wanted to take his picture and they wanted to hang around him, just looking and smiling. Both our boys have NO IDEA what to do with all this extra attention.

As you can imagine, Ryan didn't come with us. But, it will be exciting when both boys will get to do stuff like this with us! Brandon was sooooooooo good tonight! An angel! He was interested in the game, a little surprised by all the enthusiasm around him, curious about the "wave" and just happy to be there. However, by the end of the first game, he requested to go home (I'm not kidding, he actually requested). He said he was tired. So, we headed towards the souvenir stand, had him pick out something he wanted, bought shirts for all of us and Brandon and I proceeded towards Mr. Chen's car to go home. Allen was thrilled to be at an Olympic men's soccer game and stayed for the last game. After dropping us off at home, Mr. Chen went to go pick him up as well.

It was a GREAT night and something we will remember for our lifetime! :)