9NEWS' Olympic Zone > Blogs > Your Olympic Coverage from Denver

The final races have finished, the last athletes have medaled and the smoke has cleared from the closing fireworks.  I guess it's time for one last blog.

My buddy Dan Weaver and I are saying goodbye to China. We're wheels-up for Denver in less than 48-hours. It's been three weeks of mind-numbing hours, intense heat, brutal treks and strange food.

I think I wrote in an earlier blog that we ran out of time during our first visit to Snack Street, and I didn't get to try as much food as I wanted to.  A morsel of Sea Snake was all that passed my lips.  Well last night I got to go back and try a few things I'd been curious about.

We've been here in Beijing for three weeks now, and everything we've seen and experienced has been fantastic.  The newly built venues are beautiful, the streets are swept and cleaned constantly, there's no crime and all the Chinese people we've met have been smiling and happy.

We have two main drivers working 12 hour shifts and navigating the streets for us, and two backup drivers fill in when they're taking a day off.  The names of the four drivers?

Back when I was wandering around The Forbidden City I decided to use my still camera and snap pictures of the people we run into here in Beijing.

There are things I love about China. I love the way that women here, young and old, hold hands when they're walking. It's kind of a girlfriend thing. Mostly they walk in pairs and do this, but I've even seen groups of three and even four women holding hands, laughing and talking secretly to each other and clearly enjoying the moment. It's a civilized thing, a social thing, a China thing.

I was expecting to see a lot of bicycles here in Beijing. What I wasn't prepared for is the age of those bicycles.

One of the most gratifying aspects of any Olympic Games is seeing athletes from small nations participate in this grandest of sporting events. Many of you know that I have been supporting the Olympic Committee of the British Virgin Islands since first visiting there in 1997.

Yesterday we had a fantastic time at the Silk Market, though it took me about 90 minutes to buy 4 silk scarves.