Into Thick Air: A warm Beijing welcome

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This is how you get to Beijing from the good ‘ole USA.

You get on a plane and fly. And fly some more, and some more, and some more.

Then, you glance at your watch and see you only have six hours left to Tokyo and try to convince yourself this is a good thing.

Eventually, you land in Tokyo, get off, shuffle through a huge airport, wait a couple of hours, get on another plane, squeeze into a seat designed for the body shape of Billy Shoemaker, fly, fly, fly and fly some more. The seats on the plane are apparently the result of an Olympic sponsor’s contribution, but it seems surprising that Banner Lumber would spend that kind of money.

Eventually you arrive and the tough part is over. Now, you are a celeb.

You are greeted, surrounded, stormed on, by volunteers. There are a billion people in China and it appears that all have volunteered to help out to make these Beijing Games a proud moment in their country’s history. That’s real nice. After flying, flying, flying, you will accept pampering, pampering, pampering. They point you in the right direction, they find the shortest lines, they take one look at the press credential hanging around your neck and welcome you into the family.

Chairman Mao would be proud.

We fly through the credential-confirmation process in minutes. It brought to mind past Olympics, when it didn’t quite work like that. The most/least memorable was the 1996 Olympics, in that third world country known as Atlanta, Ga. We stood in line for hours, snaking around some building, in the usual summer heat and humidity special to that third-world site, until we crawled to the end, where Bubba and one of his buddies stamped our papers, patted us on the back and sent us on our way.

Thank god for the progressive civilization of China.

We’ll probably label these occasional dispatches -- most people call them blogs, but a better word seems like blabs, prattling on and on without purpose or direction, sort of like ESPN’s ‘Around the Horn’ without microphones -- Into Thick Air. But we haven’t been able to reach John Krakauer for permission yet.

The hotel is nice, although the beds are also sponsored by Banner Lumber.

Most notable is how hard everybody is trying to serve the media. Ideally, Joe Ticket-Buyer will get the same treatment. Everywhere the press turns, at least in this pre-Olympic preparation time, there is somebody helping, accommodating, watching, making sure you know where you are.

Or, maybe making sure THEY know where you are.

More in a bit, unless Bubba and the boys come calling.

-- Bill Dwyre