I'm hungry

One big shortfall of these games has been the food at the concession stands. It's not that it hasn't been good, it just "hasn't been," meaning that food at concessions stands has basically been non-existent.

This was at the 80,000 seat soccer game... the stadium is divided up into four quarters, so this is the concession area for one-quarter of the stadium. It consists of two tents with "food" and a couple of stands to purchase drinks:

With the Chinese inability to stand in lines, you could literally wait forever to get anything.
Since the water supply is not drinkable, they can't use fountain drinks at these venues without large filtration systems. Then, so as to prevent bottles from becoming potential projectile-weapons, they're poured into cups, which really slows down the process.

So you're "stuck" at the venue for at least 5 hours, if won't be readmitted if you leave. So here's the standard menu at all the venues:

On the bright side, at least it's cheap!

Lack of concessions isn't just an Olympic issue, but it's a Chinese issue in general. It was like this for the Women's World Cup Soccer here in Shanghai last September, and was also like this for the Team USA basketball games at the beginning of the month. If they only realized how much happier they could make the spectators, and more importantly for them, how much money they could make, if they offered more items for sale...

The only exception at any of the venues that I've seen (and eaten at!) is there is one McDonald's on the Olympic Green compound where the Bird's Nest and Water Cube are located. McDonald's in China must be the best-tasting McDonald's in the world! Either that, or I'm REALLY hungry when I end up resorting to McDonald's...
The upside is that the food outside of the venues has been wonderful!

Here's a couple of pictures from when Daryl and I went to eat authentic Peking Duck:

A picture after an awesome dinner in a great location, in the outside courtyard inside of a Beijing "hutong" (the traditional housing for the area) with Air Force Olmsted Scholars Jade (left) and Phoenix. I stayed with Phoenix and her husband Cliff... couldn't have asked for better hosts. They really gave me an inside look of the good life in Beijing!

Here's a picture of Cliff (right) and Phoenix's brother Zack, with the hutong courtyard in the background.

For those Air Force folks that may be reading this and think Cliff looks familiar, he's a USAFA grad, class of '99 who just recently separated (might not be able to tell with that goatee!)