Darkness has long since fallen, and I am running late as I write the daily report from the Otto Bock workshop. The hour is drawing near when it is important to know which restaurants in the city are still serving food. Luckily the canteen here in the Paralympic Village knows no such limits. They also offer the combination of knife and fork, which still significantly speeds up my food intake compared to the chopsticks typically used in this country.

On the other hand the temperature should be close to a pleasant 25 degrees, and at 9:30 pm local time no less. The terrace outside the workshop is nearly deserted. So it might be nice to just sit here and go over the events of the day.

One of the four orthopedic technicians from Australia who were helping me provide John Weaver from the news agency AFP with editorial support earlier today is taking a few minutes to relax. Then he goes back to the workbench. His shift doesn't end until 11:00 pm. A wheelchair driver from Mexico seems to enjoy the quiet atmosphere out here. Or maybe he is just waiting for a tire replacement. Couples are sitting at two of the tables, chatting in Spanish as far as I can tell.

This afternoon, Lars Gewel from ARD Online experienced an unusually quiet hour in the workshop. It is quite interesting how a journalist attending the Paralympics live for the first time describes the experience. It reminds me a lot of my debut in Athens 2004. One quickly feels that these games have a special atmosphere. And it also doesn't take long to figure out why that may be. But it makes a big difference whether you are working on a budding idea in your head or trying to draft a text from it, especially if it's for public broadcasting. Or a television report like the Austrian television team yesterday, who had Gunter Schumann to tell them why all of us are here in the first place.

Between two press meetings today, I suddenly ran into April Holmes who was just coming from the workshop. Good news: She is highly motivated for the 100-meter final on Saturday and believes her fall has not caused any significant problems. She says she was extremely lucky, takes off her sunglasses and I see the injury on her eyelid. The spikes of runner Le Fur, who tripped over her, could have easily caused much more severe damage.

She does not begrudge Katrin Green the gold medal. The two of them know each other well and have been in regular contact for years. All of the other competitors in the final also helped the leading favorite after her fall. "We are all friends," says April Holmes. Not a bad answer to the question what makes the atmosphere here so special.

It also defines the mood within the workshop team. Since everyone wants to see more of Beijing than the workbenches, spare parts inventory, hotel and a knife and fork, there was a delightful change of pace this morning: An excursion into the Forbidden City for the late shift.

It was a pleasant, merry group and the output of photos should number in the hundreds. Some of the shots show the interior of a store where the party stopped on the way back, offering nothing but silk products. It's not quite the same as one would expect from bus tours in Germany, after which you own a heating blanket which - at least currently in Beijing - nobody needs. There was far too much interesting information for that. Certainly the amount of respect for silkworms, who in a single cocoon produce a thread for further processing that is 1,500 meters in length, has increased considerably.

Walter is just returning from dinner with colleagues. "I ordered jellyfish for the entire party, but ended up eating the whole works myself." The only question is whether he used chopsticks or a knife and fork. When we arrived back at the workshop today at noon, a delegation was just about to depart. Since this happens frequently, it is rarely mentioned. But this delegation was from Vancouver. Initial drawings for a workshop at the 2010 Winter Paralympics have already been produced ...