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First and second training. Conversation in Chinese.

We've had our first and second training sessions. The curling hall is about a half-hour drive from the athletes' village. We have our own driver with an unpronounceable name and our own attaché, who is called Wey Wey but goes by Diana. We called her Nancy for a while, but then we stuck with her original name. The ice is decent, it has some minor irregularities, the speed on the tee so far fluctuates between 13.40 and 14.50, but everything seems to be ok. The lighting is a little weaker than it should be and the acoustics are a little odd. The changing rooms are a little short of average comfort, the toilets are not great - more like nothing than great. Lots of service staff everywhere, but the work doesn't go from hand to hand. At today's practice, a Canadian woman knocked over the scoreboard and the technician almost cried because he was on his own at that point to fix it. The introductory curling party was fine, good atmosphere, good food, desserts, ice cream, apart from a number of unusual dishes, some of which we really preferred not to go into. We have a whole series of matches coming up after all. We can speak a few sentences in Chinese. Lenka has a good accent and can introduce herself. The rest of us struggle with unusual accents. Pictured here is the Czech team shortly after the second practice session.