Photos by Joy Kamani top to bottom, left to right : 1 street scene in Suzhou; 2 Rachel negotiating with a rickshaw driver; 3 a well-dressed romantic couple during a photo shoot on a scenic stroll; 4 one of many pagodas we saw; 5 a street vendor selling flower bracelets; 6 a canal in Suzhou lined with shops and residences; 7 part of our lunch in Suzhou; 8 a shop cat sleeping in a paper cutting store; 9 another couple during a photo shoot here, this time on a bridge over a canal; yet another unusual t-shirt that we couldn't help getting on film.
So ended our 7-mile walks each day โ at least those that included multiple trips to the Olympic stadium. The competition was good, with some things lacking from a media point of view: 1 no video interviews in the mixed zone; 2 no rotating photographers, so Joy never got on the infield; 3 no video monitor in the media work room; 4 no tables to work on in the media tribune over the finish line. These are all executed properly in all IAAF meets we have been to. Speaking of the games, they are scheduled for September That will probably present a problem for some members of the U.
There is talk of a Pan American Youth Championships for the Area team to qualify, rather than using the three qualifying meets used this time North and Central America area trials, Carifta Games, and South American trials. If that is the case, we hope that the trials would be held in late July or early August. Meanwhile, we were preparing for our Tuesday visit to Suzhou, the hometown of our year-old volunteer friend Rachel. She had invited us a few days earlier to make this trip.
We all met at our subway stop at am on Tuesday morning and took the train about 8 stops to the railroad station. We went through security just to enter the station, similar to that of an airport. Apparently there has been a lot of counterfeiting of tickets, and this is the way the government avoids those kinds of problems. So we got our tickets and found our way to the right track. Another 20 minutes on this same train and we would have been in Shanghai. The Suzhou train station is a magnificent modern structure situated on a giant, landscaped plaza.
We were approached by rickshaw drivers to take us to the first stop, Shantang Street, a shopping area along a canal. We walked away and they chased us, the price eventually coming down to 30 yuan, but we decided to take a bus 2 yuan.
