WHY ME? Am I only the visiting American these things happen to? On Friday, I was riding on a bus back from some remote venue -- gee, there's something different --- and as we neared the Main Press Center, we began to pass through more and more security. As we rolled slowly through one, the bus stopped just as I was eye-to-eye with a Chinese soldier wearing camouflage and clutching a machine gun, his finger actually on the trigger. I smiled and waved and this guy's expression never wavered. In fact, it seemed to me that he was getting angrier, no doubt thinking, "Give me one quick burst at this knucklehead, Commisar. Please!" I stared to worry as his natural frown turned into a scowl. Just then, as the bus started moving, there was this loud rat-a-tat-tat from the undercarriage. I believe my leap would have earned me a medal in the high-jump.
 
BEST OLYMPIC MOMENTS:
 
  1. At the start of the opening ceremonies, the stadium went dark. The anticipation was as thick as the humidity. And then, suddenly and simultaneously, came a single dramatic beat on 2008 Fou drums. Souls were stirred instantly and the show never let down.

 2. Michael Phelps' edging Serbia's Milorad Cavic in a 100-butterfly finish that defied belief and eyesight. Phelps kept his 8 gold medal quest on track with the .01 of a second triumph, one that even after the official photos were released still defies description.

3. The stunningly easy and seemingly effortless three gold medals won by Jamaica's Usain Bolt. There was a lot of talk about who had the 2008 Games best performance, Phelps or Bolt. Either was worthy. Bolt broke three world records in his wins, Phelps seven. I gave the edge to Phelps only because, after he decided to go for eight, there was far more pressure on him than on Bolt.

4. Li Ning's lighting of the Olympic cauldron. The way the 45-year-old Chinese gymnast appeared to skywalk around the rim of the National Olympic Stadium before igniting the cauldron was breathtaking.

5. The U.S. 400-meter freeetyle relay team's remarkable comeback against France in another victory that kept alive Phelps' quest. When anchor Jason Lezak leaped into the pool he was neary a body length behind France's Alain Bernard, the man who wouild go on to win the 100-meter freestyle. Somehow, perhaps because he and his teammates had been upset by France's trash-talking, Lezak caught Bernard and out-touched him at the wall.

6. Cavic's post-race news conference. The Californian-born youngster was as gracious as any loser at these Olympics, despite the heartbreaking and controversial nature of his defeat.

7. The gauntlet of Chinese musicians, dancers and folk singers, all of them apparently just regular citizens, who came to the park behind the Temple of Heaven on Saturday. It was like Washington Square in the '60s.

8. The first sight of the Great Wall. Awe-inspiring.

9. The Chinese college student who, seeing I was hopelessly lost near Tiananmen Square -- my eyes were peeled for tanks all the while -- escorted me to a bus, boarded it with me and saw to it that I reached my destination, all the while telling me that Americans misunderstood the Chinese. "We are a peace-loving people," he said. Of course, he could have been a government plant tailing me.

10. The bus ride down one of Beijing's widest boulevards. The quantity of new construction was incredible, the daring architecture eye-catching, and the landscaping worthy of Longwood Gardens.      

WOW; Good luck, London.

The odds of you -- or any other city on earth --matching these 2008 Olympics in the future are roughly equivalent to Prince Charles making the cover of People's Sexiest Men issue.

The Chinese have run their Games --- which is different from running their country -- just about perfectly. The buses were on time. The security lines were greatly reduced. The tickets were sold.

The volunteers were plentiful and enthusiastic. The venues were spectacular. The food and accommodations were excellent. The populace was excited. The athletes were ecstatic.

This nation's Olympic recipe -- take 1.3 billion people, unlimited resources and add an authoritarian government that can stop traffic, close factories or level neighborhoods with a wave of its magic wand -- can't be copied.

As one of the men involved with the memorable opening ceremonies noted, perhaps the only other nation on earth that could stage a ceremony and a Games like these was North Korea.

Think about it.

Imagine if Philadelphia or New York ever got the Games. Imagine the concerns the organizers would have about traffic, overtime, work-rules, construction overruns, etc. Not a problem here.

There were roughly 20,000 people involved in the opening ceremonies. If they needed to rehearse an extra four hours, who was going to argue? They did what they were told. Period. Just like the factory owners who shut down for three weeks, the drivers who would have wanted to go out on days when their license-plate numbers wouldn't allow it, the residents of the neighborhoods that were razed to make way for venues, highways and subways.

There were a few who didn't go along with the Olympic mania, like the two Beijing grandmothers -- 77 and 78 -- who were arrested and sentenced to a year of re-education  because, during the Games, they dared protest the price they paid for their destroyed homes.

Now every Games will be measured by these. London probably will manage a splendid Summer Olympics in 2012 and still come up way short in comparison.
 
MORE HAIKU: Back by popular demand, Olympic haiku:
 
European voices.
Booming as cathedral bells
Shaking the Great Wall.
 
Chinese miracle
Seek assistance from just one
Six more will appear.
 
Usain the lightning Bolt
Green-and-gold speed unmatched
Except by the ego.
 
U.S relay teams
Legs like steel, style like great stars
Hands like cement.
 
Beijing bus rides.
Packed like a sportswriter's shirt
Horn never stops.
 
Food at Bird's Nest
Pinky-sized hot dogs look ill
Like me ten later.

When Delran soccer star Carli Lloyd scored the winning goal during overtime in the U.S. women’s soccer team’s match against Brazil, snagging the team an Olympic gold medal, her fans back home in South Jersey erupted into cheers.

“When she scored the goal, we went sprinting around the restaurant screaming,” said 12-year-old Ally Fiatl, who was one of about 100 people who came to the Champs restaurant in Marlton to watch the game.

Fiatl knows Lloyd from the Universal Soccer Academy in Medford, where Lloyd’s trainer works as director of soccer operations. Fiatl was one of a crowd of girls who showed up wearing shirts signed by Lloyd to cheer her on.

Lloyd’s personal trainer, James Galanis, got a text message from Lloyd right away.

“The first thing she said was, ‘Thank you for everything. I’m so happy,’” said Galanis.

Galanis and Lloyd’s other trainer in speed and mental fitness, Almon Gunter, said the fact the team went into overtime worked in favor of the U.S. team because its players had the advantage in endurance and physical strength.

“Brazil has better soccer players, but the U.S. has better athletes,” said Galanis.

Galanis and Gunter agreed that, from the beginning, the U.S. was not favored to win. The team lost a top player earlier to injuries; Brazil had the momentum from winning the World Cup game against the U.S. in November; and the U.S. team lost its first game in the Olympics against Norway.

“They were underdogs the whole way,” said Galanis. “That’s why it’s an amazing accomplishment.”

Galanis said the victory proved that “U.S. women’s soccer has turned a new page.”

Fans of Carli Lloyd were at Champs restaurant in Marlton to watch the game, which went into six minutes of extra play.

“I’m really proud of all the girls, not just Carli,” said James Galanis, Lloyd’s trainer in South Jersey.

Galanis said it was exciting to watch his student help the team to a win.

“Carli had a big part in it, she scored the decisive goal,” he said.

Galanis said the group he was watching with, which also included students from Universal Soccer Academy in Medford, thought game was great and exciting. 

“They weren’t just watching the game, they were watching their role model,” he said.

Delran soccer star Carli Lloyd scored the only goal in the US women's team's win over Brazil today.

Fans and former teammates Lloyd, including her trainer James Galanis of Universal Soccer Academy in Medford, gathered at 9 this morning at Champs restaurant in Marlton to watch the gold-medal game.

The game is a rematch of November's World Cup game, which Brazil won, 4-0, and the 2004 Athens' Olympic final, which the United States won, 2-1 in overtime.

FULL CIRCLE: I've come a long way in my Chinese education. Last week, I was the one shouting "TOILET", when a man couldn't seem to understand that I wanted a restaurant and not a rest room. Last night, a Chinese man shouted "TOILET" at me. Now that's progress.

I was sleeping peacefully -- or as peacefully as one can in a room where it is perpetually 58 degrees -- when the phone rang. It was the front desk and the man there, initially polite, was asking me if something was "OK?". I was groggy and his accent was thicker than the crowds at the Forbidden City. We went through the frustrating cycle several times but I just couldn't understand the focus of his question.

Finally, he'd had it with the boneheaded  American. "Your TOILET!" he screamed. "Is it OK?" I told him that, yes, as far as I knew it was wonderful. "Oh, sorry," he said. "Wrong room."

YOU'RE KIDDING, RIGHT?: The Chinese, as the world now knows, are very sensitive to any criticism of their Olympic Games.

A BOCOG (Beijing Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games) official berated foreign journalists at a news conference  last week when he got too many questions about a British reporter who had been manhandled by police. The knee-jerk stories on smog, press censorship and Tibet have annoyed the hosts to no end. And in yesterday's China Daily, an English-language paper that serves as the government's house organ, one columnist was critical of all the stories comparing these Olympics to Hitler's 1936 Games in Berlin.

So who did the Chinese hire to design the magnificent Olympic complex?

Would you believe Albert Speer Jr.?

Speer Sr., you might recall, was the Nazi's  favorite architect, a member of Hitler's inner circle, and the man who designed those 1936 Olympics.

I'm certain his son is a fine man and there's no doubt that his German firm ranks among the world's best architectural companies.  The Olympic venues they designed are breathtaking.  But perhaps the Chinese have heard something about "the perception of reality".

If you don't want your Olympics to be compared to Hitler's, than don't hire Albert Speer Jr. That shouldn't be a tough concept for the people who invented the egg roll. It's like hiring Joseph Goebbels III to churn out press releases.
 
LIU'S BOO-BOO: The relationship between the Chinese and their top athletes is, I'm sure, more complex than it appears to visiting sportswriters. But, for a Philadelphian, the level of devotion displayed when defending gold-medalist Liu Xiang pulled out of the 110-meter hurdle heats with a foot injury was a little spooky.

People who were at National Olympic Stadium Monday when the announcement of his withdrawal was made said the collective gasp was nearly as loud as the cheer that greeted Liu when he was introduced. There were people in the stands crying -- many people according to the photos I've seen -- though the cultural divide made it impossible to detect if their tears were out of sympathy for Liu or disappointment for having shelled out big bucks for tickets that essentially were worthless.

In any event, Liu had to make one of those face-saving apologies the next day, news that made it to the top of all the front pages here.

"I know everyone was keenly expecting me to run," Liu said through an interpreter. "I wanted, as much as you did, to cross the finish, a scene you have already got used to. Please believe me. The sadness and pain I have been through are not less than yours."

Here's a letter that  one fan wrote to the local paper.

"My heart hurt when I saw the news. It was a great regret [him] not to break the world record, give his best performance, and for our spectators not to celebrate with him.  He is our dear family member. We will be together forever."

A front-runner if ever I heard one.
 
TAKE THAT YANKEE DOGS!: China's growing muscle has been manifested in yet another way. They've out-malled us.

The Golden Resources Shopping Mall in Beijing's Haidian district is 1 1/2 times the size of the Mall of America.

America, take note! The food-court gap is something that must be addressed! Save our treasured icons before it's too late!

The 680,000-square-foot mall's colorful neon facade looks like something you'd see in Las Vegas. Vegas' reputation as the world's greatest gambling destination is, as anyone who's visited Macao knows, also under siege.

When I was a kid growing up in an Olney rowhouse, the Great Wall was just a Chinese restaurant on Roosevelt Boulevard near Adams Avenue. I suppose I'd seen pictures of the real wall but I had no illusions about ever getting there. Who went to China in those days, in that big, big 1950s' world? Who went anywhere besides the Jersey Shore? I suppose I was capable of dreaming about someday getting to England or France or even Germany, where my father and most of the fathers on Albanus Street  had fought only a few years earlier. But China? The Great Wall? Never even appeared as a blip on my imagination's radar screen.

So it was somewhat astounding on Monday to find myself standing atop the monumental structure, just above the village of Mutianyu. The wall's scope is breathtaking. Even on the furthest mountain in the distance, you could see it relentlessly snaking along the summit, It falls and rises with the slope of the hills, a challenge for the tourists who travel it like a boardwalk. In some places, to continue walking, you'd have to climb sections that appear to rise as high as a 40- or 50-story building. Fortunately, that section was closed for repairs - and probably to sweep away the carcasses of overweight Americans who tried and failed.

The notion that this colossal engineering feat  was built several centuries ago is astounding. How did they get the stone and brick up the steep mountainsides? Where did the workers rest? Eat? How many died? How many escaped? How many invading armies has it repelled over the centuries?

We walked for a few miles with our mouths agape. My two companions bought cans of beer from a curmudgeonly, crouching vendor positioned beneath a red umbrella. They they photographed themselves drinking it. We couldn't take enough photos.

Then, after the cable-car ride back down to Mutianyu, we could have used a Great Wall-like barrier ourselves. The long walkway between the cable-car dropoff point and the parking lot where we were headed was lined with a colorful gauntlet of souvenir peddlers. It made the Wildwood boardwalk look like the Champs d'Elysee. The vendors were, politely, insane. They stuffed T-shirts and boxed chopsticks into your face. "You like? One dollar? One dollar? Low price?" When you attempted to reject their impassioned entreaties, they backpedaled along in front of you, shouting all the way. "What you pay? Tell me? Low price." You'd avoided one and ricocheted into another, equally aggressive, equally annoying, equally incapable of taking no for an answer.

If they'd been selling something besides Chinese junk - not the boats - it might have been interesting. But all they had were the kind of cheap trinkets you get when you cash in your ski-ball tickets in an arcade. Anyway, multiply that scene by 30 or 40 and you'll have some idea about the scale of its unpleasantness. The Chinese people were not mean-spirited. In fact, they seemed to enjoy the frantic pitching and bargaining, even if many of the tourists did not. It's just a shame that all that venality had to be set in such stark juxtaposition.

The world is different than it was in the 1950s. It's tough for us Boomers to surf along in all this change's roiling wake. I suppose the kids growing up on Albanus Street these days dream bigger than we did. I hope theirs come true too.

 *** Obesity certainly doesn't appear to be a problem in China. Perhaps that's not surprising in a culture where rice is the most common food and chopsticks the eating utensil of choice. Still, it appears those in the Army might eat even less than the average citizen. There are thousands of soldiers stationed around Beijing and all appear to be roughly the same body type as Barney Fife. It might not be diet. It could be the result of them running in formation from place to place and standing at rigid attention for hours at a time.

 *** I keep reading that in China the group is more important than the individual. This may be true in the rest of the nation, but it does not appear to be the case in the bus parking lot at the Main Press Center.  Many of the buses, which run from there to the villages, the hotels, the venues, depart on the hour. So at 3 or 4 or 5, about 20 of them go speeding toward the one-lane exit. The result is a scene reminiscent of one of those microscopic views of a virus attacking a defenseless host. Everyone rushes to the single point. No one yields. The concept of waving another driver on has not yet made its way to this nation, where, until the last decade or so, very few people drove or had cars.

*** The brilliant journalistic answer of the day goes to an Aussie photographer. While he and few of his mates were walking along Beiyung Street, they stopped to ask a local for directions. Afterward, apparently needing clarification from the man, one of the Aussies turned to try to find him again. Failing to do so, he asked the photographer which of the hundreds of people crowding the sidewalk had just given them directions. "It's the guy with the black hair," he said. That really narrowed things down. Now he had a 1-in-1.3 billion chance of finding the man.

 *** When you have a 1.3 billion people, you've got a pretty deep work-force. The Chinese are able to double-and triple-team most menial jobs. There are workers to open department store doors, to hand you a plastic bag for your wet umbrella when you enter. There are workers stationed at trash cans, directing your litter to the proper container. Yesterday, I had to return to my media village room in mid-day to get something I'd forgotten. When I entered, the cleaning people were still there, all five of them. They were scurrying around the tiny room so busily I felt like I was observing an ant colony.

 *** Jamaica's Usain Bolt set a world-record in winning the men's 100-meter dash Saturday night. It might have been one of the most amazing Olympic accomplishments I've ever seen. I mean how fast could he have run it if he hadn't started showboating the last 15 meters?

 ***  Some interesting signs spotted on a walk through Beijing. "Massages by Blind Masseurs" (No thank you.)." "Perfect Gentle Reflect Best" (My thoughts exactly.) "China Tibetology Research Center" (No comment till I'm back home.). "New York-style Reuben -- 7500 Yuan" (With or without pork liver?).

 *** For all Michael Phelps' dominance here and for all the face-time 7-6 basketballer Yao Ming gets, no one in China can top Kobe Bryant as a merchandise marketer. The China Daily reports today that the Lower Merion High grad's jersey is the most popular one in China.  Boston's Kevin Garnett is second. Yao is a surprising tenth. "Nationality is immaterial when it comes to most-favored basketball players," Zhong Yu, a local fan, told the paper. "Fans go by skills alone."

 *** In fairness to the Beijing atmosphere, the weather was beautiful here the last few days. When the smog and clouds finally lifted on Friday, visitors here were surprised to see that there were mountains in the distance. Chinese officials got a little carried away with the blue skies. They quickly issued a release calling this August the best summer month in more than a decade in terms of air quality. That's frightening. And, oh yeah, it was gray and rainy again on Sunday.

 *** Woe Canada. Our friendly neighbors to the north  sent 330 athletes here and until Saturday hadn't won a single medal. Canada now has three, which is two fewer than North Korea and one more than Mongolia. At the other end of the medal board, going into Sunday, the U.S. had 54 medals, 16 of them gold. China had 47 medals, 27 gold.