Can you believe that in just fifteen months, Beijing will be hosting the 2008 Olympic Games. That means that Athens was the best part of three whole years ago & it simply doesn't seem that long!

However, it does allows me to indulge in the little hobby of pin collecting & for Beijing I've already started with the following.



Meet Beibei, Jingjing, Huanliuan, Yingying & Nini, the five Olympic mascots. The combination of their names gives the title of this post which means "Welcome to Beijing" which is clever but they will go under their unofficial group name of "The Friendlies". Doesn't that just make you warm & fuzzy inside!

At what point though, will an Olympics have too many mascots? Up until the turn of the Century, each Games had a single mascot to fly the flag, then Sydney bucked the trend with three, Athens with two & now Beijing has five!! This of course means there will be masses of pins issued for each one & of course, as collectors, we're individually obligated to hunt down whole sets at any cost! Ah, what an evil hobby & I think we're being ruthlessly preyed upon!

Each represent one of four popular animals in China, except for Huanliuan, which represents Fire for the Olympic flame (Apparently, there wasn't another animal in China which could be deemed popular!). Beibei represents a fish, Jingjing, a Panda, Yingying, a Tibetan antelope & Nini, a swallow.











I don't think anyone would have complained if they'd just stuck with a big furry Panda as the Beijing mascot. There's no question that each exudes a significant quantum of cuteness (yes, even the Tibetan Antelope!), but how are the kiddies meant to remember five mascots & which one's which. I mean, just check out Beibei & try to work out how whether it represents the fish or the swallow!?!

Anyhow, I suspect that this won't be the last set collected before September '08 & the selection on Ebay is rather coercive.

The official Beijing Olympics site is worth checking out. The venues themselves will be highlights of the games with the Stadium, nicknamed the Bird's Nest being built just for the Olympics & the Aquatic Centre which has been designed to look like a cube of bubbles. I'm thinking the Chinese will pull off something quite spectacular & unforgettable next year!

 

From the centre of the Kingdom to Renmark is roughly 250kms & it makes for a nice casual Saturday drive when a Balloon Fiesta lies at the end. Well... it would had there been fewer roadworks. I thought that bypassing the city & avoiding the tram malarky, it would result in a quick drive through the countryside but around every corner was yet more work being done. It made for a slow journey, but it is good that some of the state's roads are finally being brought up to scratch!



We drove into Renmark a bit before 1pm to find nearly all the shops closed & a few tourists walking the streets wondering what to do. It's a true country town! I've seen an ad wanting someone to start a Gloria Jeans coffee outlet in Renmark for a number of months & I actually thought it would do rather well with the town's population. I now know that it really isn't a latte kind of place & I'll leave that little business for some other entrepreneur.

It took a while to find some balloon action. We could spot the occasional wicker basket on trailers outside motels but no main action on the supposed launch point which was an oval on the edge of town.

Eventually, they arrived & held a lengthy briefing to discuss possible flights & after sending a few party balloons into the sky, it was decided to blow up the big ones but tether them rather than send them aloft & then trying to land them in the scrub outside of town with potentially disasterous results.





Of those that turned up, three of the balloons were filled with one taking kids up 20 metres or so to give them a thrill. They could have all turned around & driven off so it was good they kept the small crowd entertained.







One of the main organisers pulled out an old balloon which hadn't been used for five years & was decomissioned due to it's age. It was full of small holes in the envelope which meant it was never getting off the ground anyway & was a promotional balloon for Ansett Air Freight! Oh, the irony!

Once half filled using a fan, everyone was invited to walk inside the balloon (not something that happens very often). Once inside, we received a bit of a crash course in hot-air ballooning which was truely fascinating. Eventually for the sake of the cameras, one of the organisers cars was driven around inside it too.

After removing vehicles & pedestrians, it was raised, but even cranking up the burners to get as much hot air in as possible, it looked rather limp compared to the others. To end it, the envelope was terthered to a four wheel drive & disconnected from the basket. It drifted upward & gave the vehicle a sizable jolt, but then plummeted to be jumped on by all the kids.





The night session was what the crowds came to see. In darn cold temperatures, more balloons were raised & synchronised with their burns for all the cameras. Timing is the key to get a decent photo not full of blur. Lets, just say, I got some goodies, but plenty of crap ones! I've uploaded more from the event in flickr (just click on any photo to go there).



The chequed & yellow balloons above were 1/6th size of the real deal & included their own miniature baskets & remote control burners. One of the larger balloons was hand made by one person who stitched all the fabric himself & designed his own one person seat to go with it. Considering a full balloon can be bought for under $10k, you have to admire just how much time on his hands this guy must have had!





A few facts which were learnt from standing in the Ansett balloon;

The fabric is the same material as used in parachutes & the lower portion around the burners is nomex, as used in racing driver suits, so it won't burn.

The average flight costs about $30 in gas & with all the additional costs such as insurance, a flight costs around $150, which is cheaper than I ever thought.

The envelopes are professionally tested every few years to get clearance to fly.

Each burn is done for around 6 seconds. The top of the envelope gets to around 100 degrees centigrade. If a burn is done for a few seconds longer, the top can get to around 300 degrees & will eventually be destroyed if it's kept going.

Each burn is performed once the balloon breathes. It sounds crazy at first, but you can actually see when the envelope starts to contract with the air cooling down inside. Once the operater sees the breath, they burn again!

The initial idea was to spend the night in Renmark & drive back the following day, but every single room of accommodation was sold for the fiesta, including those in the surrounding towns. I suspect that as the weekend went, more & more balloons would have been involved resulting in a spectacular display on the last night of the long weekend, but after getting my hot air festivity fix on night one, I was too cold to care.