First Day of Work

Today, at last I headed into work at the International Broadcast Center.  This is the location I will be at for the duration of my time here.  Several new colleagues joined us for the first time this morning as well.  So the adventure began with hailing a cab with two other co-workers.  The fun part was that when we did get a cab, we found out about 500 meters down the road that this was his first day on the job.  Not exactly the most thrilling news when facing Monday morning rush hour Beijing traffic, especially when you're not sure where exactly you're going.  We managed to get there in one piece, passing the Bird's Nest Stadium and the Water Cube venue, which are unbelievable in design and size.  I'll post pictures when I'm able to snap a few.  Today the air pollution rolled back in, which I bring up because of the sad effects it has on the these breathtaking buildings.  Its really coated the venues with a drab nasty look.  Very sad.  Once inside our building we passed by military checkpoints and then went into a redesigned BOB control Center.  BOB is the company I work for, Beijing Olympic Broadcasting.  This time its a rounded glass room across from the video logging department and the video feed department.  Very cool.  The crew makeup is about 8 Chinese, four Serbians, three Australians, two Americans, three Canadians, a Polish guy, two Greeks, a Cuban, and a woman from Spain. I think we have 8-10 languages covered.  English is the official one of use.  It was great to reunite with people I last saw four years ago, yet we picked up right where we left off.  To me its incredible to step up to someone you met four years ago and be able to remember enough to ask them specifics about how their families are doing.  We swapped stories, met the new Chinese co-workers who speak decent English and began to familiarize with the whole process.  Tomorrow we start shift work, with me working 8-5 for the next week.  Then I'll go to noon to nine.  I actually have 5 scheduled days off in the next six weeks including my Birthday.  Not sure what I'm going to do yet, but that's all part of the adventure.  To close out the day we had  an hour long rush hour drive home in a taxi that makes Atlanta's traffic funny. Several of us then went to a local Chinese restaurant for nice filling meal, that cost me about 5 bucks.  You can really eat cheap here.  Last tidbit, you can get a 20 oz coke in the International Broadcast Center for about 65 cents.  Hard to beat it!  Off to bed! We have testing of the Japanese Television Circuits in the morning.