Beijing #1: Olympic Park

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I knew that my flight was going to be badly delayed when they started serving the food while we were still sitting on the tarmac. I had just eaten a rather large and expensive breakfast at the airport, so just picked at mine. If I had of known I would have just waited for the plane food. The flight was maybe couple of hours and uneventful. I took the subway to where I was staying. A couple of annoying things about the subway. One you can't buy a through ticket, when I got off the airport line, I had to queue up to buy a ticket for the rest of my journey. Then when I got to what should have been my stop, the train sailed through it. I later to I d out that thirty close the station for the holidau, I presume because it is too busy. So the convenient hostel that I had picked due tonite location to the subway, now involved a 20 minute walk. I also missed The entrance to The hostel as it wasn't well signposted. I really liked The street it was in though. It was real old school Chinese, the buildings were really beautiful. The next inconvenience was checking in to the hostel. The previous guest had buffered off out for the day merchant vacated the room, so we were relegated to a dorm. I don't know why the staff didn't just take the person's carp out of the room, by this is China and that would have been too straightforward and simple of an option.

I had planned to head to the Lamma Temple, but due to my delayed flight and the subway faff, I figured that I wouldn't have time to go there and to the Olympic Park, so I just decided to head to the Olympic Park as a friend had recommended going there in the evening. I headed to the other subway near my hostel, that was a complete ballache, as most of the entrances and exits were closed. There was only one entrance/exit open for people entering and another one for people exiting. It got worse when I tried to buy a ticket, all the ticket machines were roped off and instead there was one woman, who you had to tell/show your destination to and give her the money for the ticket and she would go and but it from the machine and give it to you. Seriously, could this be any less efficient?

I made it to Olympic Park just as it was starting to get dark. After joining the massive queue and going through security, I was inside the park. Last time, I was in Beijing was in 2006, which seems like a million years ago and was before the Olympics. I remember all the construction work going on and I think on my tour of the Great Wall we stopped at the Olympic Park to get some photos of the Bird's Nest. I wasn't really interested back then, but now I was interested in visiting. There were lots of statues of the cute Olympic Games mascots, so I spent a while taking some photos of those. I really liked the building that was shaped like an Olympic torch at the top, so cool. I also really liked that the Olympic Park was buy and that the site is still being used and is popular today. It's nice to see that it didn't die after the Olympic Games were over. I headed over to the Bird's Nest. It is a really cool building/stadium. I love the design and being here at night, I get to see it all lit up. I think it looks better with the lights glowing red and orange from inside. I think that you can pay to do tours that go inside the Bird's Nest, but I am too cheap (and not that interested) so I was happy to walk around the outside. There were also some cool sculpture/murals on the walls near the Bird's Nest.

The Watercube, which is the national aquatics centre is another really interesting building to look at. All the architecture here is simply amazing. Next, I came to Ling Long Pagoda. This tower was all lit up and kept changing colours. I stood watching it for a while. The tower was used as a media broadcasting centre during the Olympic Games. I continued my walk through the Olympic Park, the gardens were beautifully manicured and filled with red and yellow flowers. Finally, I came to the Beijing Olympic Tower, which was completed in 2014 (construction began in 2011, a long time after the Games were over) and opened to visitors in 2015. It is the fourth tallest structure in the city. The tower is really beautiful and I loved watching it light up and change colors. There was a lot of variety in colours and designs that lit up on the tower. I was really happy that I decided to visit here as the park looked so beautiful lit up at night. I had made it pretty much to the en of the park and there was nothing more that I really wanted to see. I could have got on the subway at one of the other stations that stretch the length of the park, but the place I wanted to eat at was back at the start, so I ended up walking a few kilometres extra just to get back to it. Also I got to check out some more displays that were set up to celebrate National Day.

I was absolutely starving by the time I had finished looking around the park. I had spied a Gil Wonton restaurant earlier in the little strip of shops by the subway entrance. I love Gil Wonton, so headed there. I was gutted though as the menu was crap compared to a normal store, there was so little choice. I ended up getting some kind of set, which includes a bowl of wontons, a side, and a drink. The food was okay, but not as good as my regular place. I then headed back to the hostel to chill and wait for my friend who was arriving later that night.

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