Another great relay. Essentially, that translates as another well-deserved, good night's sleep for me and for all members of the delegation.
Better be more of it, everyone had been joking around from Day 1, but it wasn't until Muscat that we got a chance.
With just 45 minutes of sleep on Sunday, the Omani capital, where we stayed for an additional 24 hours after the relay, was a long-anticipated leg for me.
We had been working around the clock for nearly two weeks, traveling the world without a set time zone, and the experience was like driving in the ultra-fast lane. And when moments of relaxation came, no one wasted a single minute. Certainly not me.
During the Tuesday evening celebrations, which were extremely well prepared and organized, taking a snooze was not the best option, but the most natural one for exhausted souls like us.
I fell asleep numerous times during the performance; and each time, Lin Xiaohua, a staff of ours who sat by my side, would snap me out of the snooze with the words: "The camera's right there, wake up!" Alas, a price to pay for sitting in the front row, I thought, struggling to stay sober, only to see Lin himself falling fast asleep.
Drifting in and out of sleep each night has become a routine for all of us. Torchbearer operation chief Gu Min, has had many one-hour-sleep days but is still ready as ever.
Even when reporters go to bed, especially those with China Central TV and Beijing TV, most still have to edit their previous day's work and prepare for the next. Whatever the time of day, people are always busy working.
That's not to mention those of us who never have the chance to dine or answer the call of nature while we are on the road.
A lot of people volunteered to take part in this mission, and although we cherish the opportunity to visit 21 cities around the world, most of us have been wowed by our acquaintances and colleagues for a "month-long global sightseeing tour" (nice thought), there is not a single tourist in our delegation.
We are each a member of the Beijing Olympic Torch Relay delegation, first and foremost responsible not for representing China, but spreading universal Olympic ideals to all corners of the world. We each understand how important the dignity and integrity of our mission are, and feel frustrated or wronged when and only when the values we seek to promote are challenged or taken to task for the wrong reasons and through the wrong venues.
But one way or another, this has been an once-in-a-lifetime experience and one that has turned out to be far more exciting than I expected.
Some friends of mine encouraged me to write a book about the torch relay when they heard I was involved. But before we left Beijing, a close acquaintance who has published a number of books told me to forget about it because, in his words, "People will at best stay focused for two legs, and unless your plane is hijacked for 30 days and your work is on your experience with the hijackers, who'll be interested?"
Of course, he may never have imagined what the trip has been like for us, and for me - the honor to communicate with peoples in so many cities; efforts that worked out and those which didn't; the experiences, lessons and self-reflections and, essentially, the good things and the bad things, all which constantly remind us it always takes two palms to make an applause. We are but one palm; the other necessitates cooperation from relay cities, in this increasingly small world.
And that's exactly what makes this trip so magical.
Come to think of it, I just might write that book after all.
Qu Yingpu, deputy editor-in-chief of China Daily, is spokesman for the Beijing Olympic Torch Relay
