Did You See Michael Phelps?

This has been by far the most common question we have had since returning. No, we did not see Michael Phelps! That would certainly have been exciting, but I understand that he left Beijing shortly after winning gold medal #8.

The only USA medalist we saw was Raj Bhavsar. He was a gymnast who won team bronze. We saw him while shopping at the USA House, and he posed for a picture with Nathan. Check out those biceps!

From athletes

The only other athletes we saw were all at the Great Wall.

Here is a Canadian rower:

From athletes

Some members of the USA skull team:

From athletes

And a wrestler from the USA:

From athletes

The athletes at the Great Wall all highly recommended taking the toboggan ride down. Panasonic wanted everyone to take the tram down because they were afraid the toboggan was unsafe - this was one of our few disappointments on the trip.

We also saw the entire Spanish olympic team in the Beijing airport the morning we were leaving. We spoke to one of the members of the Spanish men's basketball team (silver medal winners) who plays in the NBA. I didn't know his name - but he was one of the starters, he spoke English well, and he was tall! He had his bouquet of flowers from the medal ceremony in his luggage cart.

From athletes

When we were in the Tokyo airport, we spoke to the family of a member of the men's volleyball team (sister and mom). We have some video of that conversation.