London's Olympic Park reopens to the public, 1 year after the 2012 Olympics

I can't believe it has been exactly 1 year since we visited London's Olympic Park!  It seems like a lifetime ago that we were in the thick of the London 2012 Olympics, enjoying the Olympics-themed food, the souvenirs, the sports, the exhibits.

To commemorate the 1-year anniversary of the London Games, the northern section of Olympic Park reopened to the public this weekend.  So what does the park look like now?  USA Today reports that Olympic Park is undergoing quite a big change.  Here's what has happened (or what is going to happen) to some of the major buildings inside Olympic Park (along with photos of the buildings that I took on July 28, 2012):

McDonald's Olympics souvenirs

We are back in the US after 5 weeks in the UK, and all month long I've been blogging about how pervasive the Olympics have become in everyday British life. That's definitely not the case here in the US; in fact, one of the first things 3Po said to me after our plane landed at SFO and we were walking through the airport was, "Mama, don't they know there's an Olympics going on?  Why aren't there any Olympics posters?".  Obviously, as the host country, the Olympics was bound to get much more coverage, but I'm still a bit surprised at the extent of Olympics awareness here in the US.

London 2012: Olympic Football

When we purchased our tickets to Olympic football (soccer) a year ago, we had no idea which teams would be playing.  We made our choice based on the stadium (we wanted to spend some time in Wales to see Cardiff and the Millenium Stadium) and the price (the quarterfinal match was within our family-of-5 budget, and we figured that the crappy teams would have been weeded out by the quarterfinals, so we'd get a decent match).  So it was a delighful surprise to find out that Team GB had been placed into Group A, and that we would be watching the winner of group A play in our semifinal.  And when Team GB actually did win the lottery, we felt like we had won the gold medal already.  We'd only be watching one match -- and it would be Team GB!  We were already looking forward to the event, but now our excitement had reached fever pitch.

London 2012: Olympic sailing

Congratulations to Nick Dempsey for winning a silver medal in the Men's RS-X windsurfing competition!  Windsurfing may not be the most popular Olympic event on the planet, but we have a special interest in Nick, because we actually got to see him compete last week.  After stalking the London 2012 ticketing website for nearly a year after the initial ticket lottery, I managed to get sailing tickets for the whole family, so on August 1st, we drove down to Weymouth and Portland, host to all the sailing events for London 2012.  Here's a recap of our day:

Olympics decorations around Cardiff

It's Day 10 of the Olympics, and we've just arrived from a weekend trip to Cardiff, where we watched Team GB play (and unfortunately, lose to) South Korea in the quarterfinal football match.  Because Cardiff is an Olympic venue (Cardiff's Millenium Stadium is one of 6 venues hosting the Olympic football games), the city was also dressed up for the Games.  Here's a look at the decorations I saw around Cardiff:

Visiting Olympic Park

BlogHer 2012 is here!  The official conference begins in just 1 day, but bloggers have been arriving in New York for several days now, and the parties are already in full swing.  It's going to be a hectic three day or four days, filled with people and parties, seminars and swag, friends and fun -- and for the first time since 2008, I won't be there.

I'm sad to be missing it all... but since I'm in London for the 2012 Olympics, I think I'll survive.    While bloggers were packing their suitcases and traveling to New York, I was watching Olympic sailing in Weymouth.  While they are listening to the closing keynote speeches (or perhaps partying at CheeseburgHer) on August 4th, I'll be watching Team GB compete in the football semi-finals at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff.  Yes, we've had the good fortune to get tickets to 2 Olympic events... and we were even able to visit the Olympic Park!

Visiting the World's Largest McDonald's

Humans have always been fascinated with the "-est".  That's why people travel for miles to see the world's tallest building, the world's longest bridge, the world's largest ball of string.  That's why people are willing to buy tickets a year in advance and queue for hours to watch the highest, fastest, and strongest athletes compete in the Olympics.  


That's why I was so excited to find out that McDonald's had built the world's largest restaurant for the Olympics -- and that I was going to get the opportunity to visit.   McDonald's invited my family and I to a day at the Olympic Park and lunch at the World's Largest McDonald's with Rick Wion, McDonald's Director of Social Media, and Molly McKenna Jandrain, McDonald's Director of PR.

The world's largest McDonald's restaurant is located inside Olympic Park in East London, just a few hundred feet away from the Olympic Stadium (note, there is a second McDonald's restaurant inside the Olympic Park, on the other side of the Olympic Stadium, but it's much smaller; there's no doubt about which one is the world's largest).  The entire building measures 32,292 square feet, which is quite a bit bigger than the previous recordholders, McDonald's in Orlando, FL and McDonald's in Vinita, OH (29,135 square feet).

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Olympics: how sweet it is

My obsession with the Olympics continues... the Brits are beginning to look at me strangely, because I can't seem to stop taking photos whenever I see a product with an Olympics logo.   I was at Selfridge's Food Hall last week, and there was I was impressed by the number of Olympics-themed edibles (both licensed and unlicensed) the Olympics-crazed consumers could consume.  From candy to cookies to cakes to crisps to coke, companies are offcompanies are taking the word "consumer" literally!  Here are my favorites:

Would you pay a premium for Official London 2012 cookies (or, as the British call them, biscuits)?  Sure, the frosted mascot and Olympic medal designs are cute, but it's not like you can keep them as a souvenir.   They did have cookies in special Olympics tins, which I would totally buy: after the cookies are gone, I can use the tin to store my souvenir Olympics pins, key chains, pens, snowglobes, coins... on second thought, maybe the frosted cookies would be better for my budget.

London Prepares: Olympics decorations around London

It's less than a week till the London 2012 Olympic games, and the whole nation is excited!  All the newspapers have daily Olympic inserts featuring Olympic athletes and updates on the preparations for the games.  It's not all good news -- there are reports of lost athletic equipment, 4-hour detours, and traffic congestion and confusion due to the special Olympic traffic lanes around London and the other games venues.  But for the most part, everyone is getting into the spirit.  It's hard not to, what with the whole of London putting on its Olympic party clothes!   Here are some of the Olympic trappings I've seen around:

Olympic Torch Relay, Day 54: Salisbury

Today, The Pea and I attended our first Olympic event: we saw the London 2012 Olympic Torch pass through Salisbury!  The torch has been making its way around the UK since mid-May, with 8,000 torchbearers carrying the flame through more than 1,000 cities, towns and villages.   June 11 was Day 54 of the Olympic Torch Relay, and I was determined to see it.

Olympics-themed candy

Olympic fever has definitely hit England.  Many English households have their homes decked out with British flags -- they were originally put up for the Queen's Jubilee, and the owners have let them stay up for the Olympics.  The papers and tabloids all have an Olympics section with a daily countdown and daily feature of a British athlete.  Stores are filled with Team GB logowear (Olympic logowear is rare; I'm assuming only the official London 2012 stores will have them) and you can buy Olympic-themed everything and anything you want.  Here's a sample of some of the Olympic-themed candy we've been munching on:

London 2012 Official Programme

I don't buy many physical books or magazines these days; thanks to our Kindle and iPad, we can read pretty much any book or magazine we want, without adding bulk or weight to our luggage.  But this Official Programme to the London 2012 Olympic games is a keeper.  We like buying souvenir programmes to all the events we attend, and since this is the world's biggest sporting event, it's worth the space it will take up on our library shelf.    And since it's probably not going to be available on Amazon or Barnes and Noble, I thought I'd share what's inside:

London 2012, here we come!

We've been visiting the UK once every 2 years for the past 10 years or so.  Since Alfie's parents have a guest room, we stay with them, and being the brave souls that they are, they're happy to host us for at least 3 weeks each time.  With such an extended stay, we've managed to squeeze in some side trips while we're in the region -- to Amsterdam, Ireland, France, and places around England.  Each trip has been great-- but this year is going to be truly special, because we're going to the London Olympics!

What we learned from the Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies

Here are some interesting things we learned at last Friday's Winter Olypmics Opening Ceremonies in Vancouver:

* India, a country with 1.1 billion people, only sent three athletes to the winter games. What's up with that? It's no use saying that India doesn't have any snow; neither do Ethiopia or Senegal, and they still managed to come up with one athlete each to compete in these games. What, don't they have ice rinks in New Delhi? Or aren't there any rich Indian kids who go to boarding school in Switzerland and ski?

* I was planning to include Iran (with 4 athletes) in the list of countries with no snow and more athletes than Inda, but I found out it does actually snow in Iran; some of their mountains have snow all year round!

* Hong Kong is one of the most densely-populated areas in the entire planet, with almost 16,000 people per square mile (compare that with Canada's 10 people per square mile). One square mile is like, nothing! I'd say Palo Alto's downtown area is about one square mile, and the thought of having 16,000 warm bodies squished there makes me want to run away and join Cirque du Soleil (which is based in Canada).

And here are some interesting "facts" we noticed all on our own:

* Team USA had the best headgear-- love thoseNordic-inspired knit caps! -- although Mongolia's lone athlete comes a close second, with her bongga, silvery fur hat.

* Speaking of bongga, that's exactly how I would describe the opening ceremonies. I was impressed by how they incorporated technology to come up with such creative and entertaining production numbers. Our favorite section, hands down, was the part where they made the entire stage look like a bunch of whales swimming across the ocean. Magnificent! I have to commend the organizers of the event for not even trying to compete with the human-body extravaganza of the 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies; instead, they dared to be different and did their own thing.

* Winter Olympians are extraordinarily good-looking! Seriously, the women look like models (check out Lindsey Vonn, Gretchen Bleiler, Lindsey Jacobellis, and the entire Swedish female delegation) and the men are all total hunks (except maybe Shaun White, but I suspect a lot of girls find his goofy dude appeal much sexier than the typical male model hunky type) . Alfie thinks it's because winter sports have a high financial barrier to entry, so for the most part it's the richer kids who get into these sports -- and the gene pool tends to be decidedly better-looking vwhen you have more money. I think he has a point, although I'd say the cameras also focus more on the better-looking athletes.

* Somebody is going to get fired for that Olympic torch malfunction!