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Wednesday, August 20, 2008 , 12:05 PM

Smelly@ The Games (she wish U_U")

Yeppers Smelly's back with an update. An Olympic update. :D

I've not at all been... diligent at my blogging, in fact I haven't been blogging for the past 18 days O_O. *gulps* Well, okay, since I'm watching the Olympics Motorcross right now I'll kick off my post with the Olympic Games. :D

The Opening Ceremony

Haha I can't believe I'm still gushing over the opening ceremony. As all of you guys know, it was co-directed by world-acclaimed Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou and Chinese choreographer Zhang Jigang, and boy did they deliver, it went way beyond my expectations, and I naively thought the Athens Opening Ceremony back in 2004 was the best it could ever get. I was so wrong. I loved how they incorporated the 4 greatest inventions as themes in the performance, it was a good way to expose people from all over the world (including young Chinese) to Chinese culture and history. At the same time, it also kinda was a mini hao-lianing campaign, at least to me lar, I mean c'mon we invented 4 of the most important items which made major contribution towards human civilization, the 4 are namely: the compass, gunpowder (and here comes the whole enchilada over the debate of bane or boon, but more about that next time), paper and printing. With the rise of China as a major global economic superpower, I bet many Chinese in the stands were thoroughly enjoying the pride and glory that very special night. Brilliant isn't it? Can haolian oh-so-subtly about Chinese achievements but also pass off as a very educational, cultural and historical overview at the same time.

I loved how the paper scroll floated away from the ground, the projection, the lights, the music made it so enchanting to watch. I loved the parts where thousands of 'Confucius's disciples' (it's said that Confucius has 3000 disciples) recited Confucian analects about harmony and brotherhood, the fact that there were 3000 of them dressed in the same 'ancient' garb and holding bamboo scrolls moving along to the rhythm of the music made it all the more majestic. And and the part where the 'imperial ladies' dressed in Tang dynasty costume came out and the dragon pillars rose up, it was in full red and gold splendour and for a second I almost forgot all of that took place in a stadium, it really felt like we were transported to the imperial court of Forbidden City! Really, really captivating lar!

Some of them are really pretty leh!

I loved the way they did the final torch relay! So creative and dramatic! Me like! :D

China really made great use of their numbers and definitely their fireworks at the finale!!! They were like BOM BOM BOM, they kept coming at ya fast and furious they almost filled out the entire TV screen la! Even though there were reports claiming that some of them were digitally imaged/enhanced, eh at least they put in effort to make it realistic and pretty right. Viewers wanted a feast for the eyes and they delivered, like that also complain. Then everyone should condemn blockbuster Kungfu flicks with CGI already. 8D

My Favorite Fu Wa! Jing Jing!

The 5 mascots also called Fu Wa are super cute! My favorite is the panda, called Jing Jing. I'm not too sure about the way the Fu Wa(s) were named though, Bei Bei, Jing Jing, Huan Huan, Ying Ying, Ni Ni, all of them form the sentence "Beijing huan ying ni" which means "Beijing welcomes you" in English. Haha creative lar but a bit corny for me. XD During one of the intervals in I forgot which event the Fu Wa(s) came out to entertain the crowd, basically they were bouncing along to the music, then one of them tripped over and the other Fu Wa(s) gathered around flailing their arms for help and the fallen Fu Wa was also flailing his/her limbs in distress, freaking funny lar!

My mum brought back a set of Fu Wa(s) keychains and I was telling we can sell them off next time to avid Olympic collectors at a high price, hahaha I'm very enterprising hor. =3= Lol.

Singapore Women's Table Tennis, Olympics football...

Table Tennis

Woohoooooo~ Yes! Yes! Yes! *back flips, cartwheels* (Due to ahem physical constraints, Smelly can only do virtual acrobatics) Our Women's Table Tennis Team gives Singapore our long-awaited SILVER medal after 48 looong years! I regret to say I missed the gold medal match =( was gorging myself on seafood at a family gathering T_T. But eh eh before you stone me I did watch a bit of the repeat! I'm really, really proud of them! You can't get more Singaporean than Li Jiawei, Feng Tian Wei, Wang Yue Gu, it's not easy squaring off with your nemesis (Li Jiawei vs Kim Kyung Ah) whilst under immense pressure of donning the Singapore flag, all of them were really, really brave.

Haha and this year there are 2 very interesting table tennis players who tickled me funny bones, they're none other than Kim Kyung Ah of S.Korea and Sayaka Hirano of Japan. Lol if I were to give them superhero names, it'd be The Chopper for Kim and The Stare (O_O) for Hirano. At first I was kinda annoyed and irritated at the way Kyung Ah executes her chop, lol her expression is super sickening lar I bet her OS is "I chop, I chop, I chop chop chop!", but gradually when she loses points because of her chops (net) I find her really comical. XD Hirano was aggressive against HK's Tie Yana, she kept staring and scowling at Yana the whole time, and when she scores a point she'd look into Yana's eyes and go "Yes!" in her face. Lol I love her la, it's as if she jumped right outta a manga. You can't blame Yana for breaking down mentally man. Lol mental warfare, me like!

I chop! I chop! I chop chop chop!

Movin' on to football... watched the match between Brazil and Argentina last night where the latter held Brazil to a 3-0 defeat. Hai was less than impressed with Brazil's defense, midfield wasn't fluid, Ronaldinho's pace just wasn't like he used to be. But there were some controversial momenta especially in the 2nd half where Brazil were down to 9 men after the %!%^&^%& ref showed them the red TWICE in a span of shorter than 10 mins. Unlike in Chinese culture, the color red has a far less auspicious significance to it, this time it went against Brazil's favor. :( And both red cards starred Mascherano as the victim. The 1st red card was really ironic, with Lucas's foul on Maschie, hais both are Liverpool lads leh, I just hope there was no hard feelings when they return to Anfield. For the second, Neves was given a straight out red after he supposedly clipped Maschie who immediately hugged his knees to his chest and rolled into the air pretty dramatically, I am certain there was absolutely NO contact whatsoever that caused any hurt or harm to Maschie lor. The red on Neves was throughly uncalled for. Alamak Maschie had better not become a diver like a certain Ronaldo from a certain EPL club when he comes back to Anfield lor cause I really, really hate dirty football. Messi a.k.a Maradona's successor was phenomenal. And when I saw Riquelme yesterday, my heart skipped a beat! I thought he was Maradona la! O_O He really looks like a young Maradona lor!

Updates on a fab night out with me cousies next time once I get them photos! ^u^