August 15, 2008 (Beijing, China) – The Canadian Olympic Committee’s office at Beijing’s Main Press Centre is in a little corner on the third floor. The MPC, as we know it here in Beijing is like most of the Olympic buildings, monolithic – and has everything in it from the New York Times headquarters to an Italian gym, including showers, and thousands and thousands of journalists rushing around trying to meet deadlines. Every language spoken on the planet is shouted by journalists into cell phones (no doubt to their impatiently waiting editors).

We greet one another, recognizing each other from four years earlier in Athens, and hope there is time to have tea at some point. There is an endless amount of information here either on-line, or, thanks to China’s forests, on paper, paper, and more paper.

In amongst the reams of printed information, electronic information, and international dialogue, was one lone piece of paper at the Canadian Olympic Committee’s (COC) office announcing that Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty would be available for interviews at Canada Olympic House at 1:30 on Thursday, August 14 – the day after all the excitement of the road racing competitions ended, and prior to the track racing which begins on Friday, August 15 at the Lao Shan Velodrome. The Premier is visiting the Games in conjunction with Ontario’s bid to host the 2015 Pan American Games supported by the COC (read more on this story here, and here.)

It was a perfect day to catch up with Ontario’s Premier and perhaps find out why only one of the fifteen cyclists representing Canada at the 2008 Beijing Games resides in Ontario? Does he think there could be a relationship between the low priority the province seems to give cycling, for instance with Ontario’s transportation and road systems, and the lack of Olympic athletes? So I began my quest to catch up with the Premier.

I’m staying near Line One subway and my stop is Sihui – which means “Water” — and that is what is falling from the sky as I leave the apartment, an hour and half before the designated interview time. My hosts tell me that the amount of rain in Beijing is a result of too many rockets being shot into the sky as the organizing committee tries to get rid of the pollution that hangs over the city. But I do not worry – I have my organizing committee supplied raincoat, made of purple plastic.

The subway is busy, but people here are used to moving quickly and after transferring to Line Eight at Guomao, I get to Beitucheng subway stop within half an hour. Beitucheng is the gateway to all things Olympic. From here Line Ten, also known as the Olympic Line, runs up to the Bird’s Nest Stadium, another amazing feat of Olympic architecture. Every subway transfer is an 800-metre trek between connections – you feel like you’re going from one airport terminal to another.

I hold my copy of the notice of the Premier’s availability. It says “Canada Olympic House is located in Cunzhang Building, #8 in the Chaoyang District on West Beichen Rd.” My hosts have not been able to find it in advance for me – they say that none of their maps of Beijing have this road on them, and I recall as well that several long standing Beijing neighbourhoods were razed in the process of building the Olympic Green (which is mainly cement and asphalt), and old maps are useless. The copy of the address is getting wet.

But with 700,000 volunteers on hand, most of whom are quite smart and speak some English as well as Chinese, I’m confident I will track down the Premier once I am at Beitucheng, simply by enlisting the services of these bright young volunteers dressed in various shades of turquoise, yellow and beige. A volunteer, who teaches “the easy things in English” at the Beijing University, though she only seems old enough herself to be a first year student, looks at the address and frowns – she’s never heard of it. We both figure it’s in the Olympic Green somewhere and hop on the subway to the Olympic Stadium stop. On the way there we both agree that grammar has to be the most boring part of the English language.

But between the Beitucheng stop and the Olympic Stadium stop you actually have to get out of the subway, walk 400 metres to the long lines at the security check where each day I have to put my sunscreen on, use my hand cleaner and drink my water to prove that they are not filled with bacteria for warfare. After this you walk 200-metres to the Olympic Line. Only those who hold tickets or have accreditation can get onto this subway, making the entire Olympic Green available to just to a few of Beijing’s population of twenty million.

At the Olympic Green subway many other volunteers are consulted. No one knows where this place is. Maps are brought out and finally, yes, another volunteer, a young man, who speaks English – not as well as the first volunteer, but a lot better than I speak Chinese – will take me.

“I must go back to my post,” says Volunteer #1. I am so grateful to her, and give her a Canadian pin, which makes me feel trite, given how wonderful she has been. Volunteer #2 and I take the Olympic Line back to Beitucheng because the map says Canada Olympic House is on the outside of the Olympic Green. We go back outside, around security and walk another ten minutes in the rain to what I believed would be Canada Olympic House. I have called the premier’s assistant twice and left messages with Steve at the Ministry of Health Promotion who is the go-to guy for the Premier letting them know, that I’m a little late, but will be there soon.

We aren’t anywhere near Beichen Rd., but we are at a bus circle and when we find the right stand, we commence to wait for a bus while the rain continues pouring. Everyone is quite interested in the lone Canadian standing there in the purple plastic raincoat, and I do have a good time as Volunteer #2 tries to translate. Eventually the bus arrives and off we go, straight into a traffic jam. Twenty-five minutes later, Volunteer #2 tells me we have reached out destination – Beichen Rd. is nearby. The rain comes down in torrents as we disembark. I am now an hour and a half late to interview the Premier.

And there it is right in front of me, the Bird’s Nest Stadium, exactly where I was an hour and a half ago, but on the other side of the fence that divides the Olympic Green from the masses. Four hundred metres in one and a half hours – new Olympic record no doubt.

But Volunteer #2 and I still cannot find Canada Olympic House. He is the coolest kid on earth as he asks everyone around, security guards, hotel bellmen, hotel guests”¦ everyone. No one knows where we should go.

All I want now is a really good cup of tea. The Premier is probably back in his Toronto office by this time. I spy the Jade Tea Room at a hotel near us and ask Volunteer #2 to tea, but he said he cannot come. Oh please, you have done so much. No, it is my duty as a volunteer, I cannot take tea. He is soaked to the skin as he holds his umbrella over me. I marvel at this gracious whiz kid and wonder about kids in North America matching his efforts.

Volunteer #2 and I say good bye and I head into the Jade Hotel. Eventually, through sign language, they take me on the elevator to the second floor where tiny tea rooms with delightful teas await. I spend the afternoon eating vegetarian food and sipping tea with three people from England.

On the subway home I see a young Chinese man in a Canada jersey. Where did you get that jersey, I ask? The Canadian Olympic Committee, he replies, the organization he volunteers with. Where is Canada Olympic House I ask. Oh you go to Liangmaqiao subway stop and take a cab. It’s difficult to find.