So I went to visit the Yuan Shen Natatorium this morning, which is closer to our hotel than the Oriental Sports Center world championships venue, and therefore a time saver for when Pál needs to train. It was only a 10 minute taxi ride even with what seemed like a traffic jam to me, costing 14 yuan (approximately 2.1 US dollars).
It is a nice 50 meter pool, clean and well-organized, reserved for the World Championship swimmers. Depth ranging from 1.2 to 1.8 meters, and water temperature 27 degrees Celsius. With this cleared, we went to the Oriental Sports Center, to check out the competition pool.
The Oriental Sports Center is extremely beautiful on the outside, but not as huge and luxurious on the inside as the Dubai 2010 venue. I was happy to see that I immediately was able to find my way around inside the building, but might miss the bolstered seats from Dubai when competition starts :-)
Security is tight, which is very nice. I’ll rather have my bag go one time too may through security, that go around worrying about people being able to just wander in, so it is good to see that it is ever-present both at the venue, the training facility and the hotel.
Now for some sleep, jet lags feels worst now the 2nd day. Food is good, especially if you like sour and sweet pork, chicken, eggs or shellfish. I miss some plain pasta or rice without pork-flavor, and would maybe like ‘hot and spicy’ to be more ‘hot and spicy’ than ‘sweet and sour’. Coffee is good and plenty, which to me is the most important of all.
Pál and the others will arrive tomorrow.
