2011 Asia Badminton Games

Okay - as soon as I hit send on that last post I remembered what we did for dinner!  Our hotel is the hotel for all the players, coaches, trainers, and officials for the 2011 Asia Badminton Games. So there are about 20 countries here with their best Badminton players.  So thought it would be a fun (and very cultural experience) to go watch the games and we figured we would be able to get our dinner at the stadium.

 

Our guide Michael and checked into where the games were being held and said that the cab ride should be about 15 yuan and tickets no more than 100 yuan. We also found out that China's premier men's player would be playing tonight. 

 

We neeed to cabs to take us to the stadium.  Diane, Mom, Grace and Maggie went in one cab and paid 29 yuan cab ride (more traffic) and Dad, Ruthie and I went in the second cab.  Our cab driver wnated to charge us 69 yuan.  All Dad had was a 100 yuan bill and I had no money, so we ended up in a minor argument...eventually he called the other cab driver and he gave dad the rest of the chnage from the 100 yuan bill.  At the stadium it was clear that some folks were scalping tickets, but for some unknown reason we were allowed into the stadium without purchasing a ticket! 

 

The game - at any one time there may be four matches going on.  Might be a singles match or it might be a doubles match...it might be men or it might be women. A match is won by winning two out of three games, and each game is played to 21 points or the player must win by 2 points.  We saw several games go over 21 points.

 

None of had ever seen competitive badminton game before, so we had no idea what to expect.  It was exciting, fast paced, and it was easy to follow what was happening.  We quickly became fans and were cheering with the rest of the Chinese - call and response - "Wei da", "Jia you."  A Chinese woman in front of us was enamored with the girls and kept smiling at them whenever they cheered the Chinese players.  Later she offered us all Dove chocolate ;-)

 

We saw Lin Dan the top Chinese men's player win a tight match against a player from Thailand.  We also saw a single women's match - two Chinese play each other (Liu and Wang ??) and two Chinese doubles teams play each other.  Another Chinese woman beat her Thailand opponent in just 2 games.  Another Chinese men's player was winning his singles match against a player from Thailand when we left.

 

The cab ride back to the hotel was much quicker than the ride over and cheaper, 12 yuan.

 

Everyone enjoyed our evening of badminton!  I recommend seeing a competitve game if you ever get the chance.
 

Joyce