Sign In
Blogs from Olympic Park, Beijing, China, Asia
Advertisement
At the Olympic village - Beijing style
Published: October 3rd 2012Asia » China » Beijing » Olympic Park
October 3rd 2012
I managed to hand wash my clothes last night and they were dry by this morning, an indication of how warm my room really is. I had a bad experience in a laundarette in Buenos Aires once. I dropped my clothes off for the laundry service and on my return I was served by an old woman who resembled my grandma, who duly handed over the perfectly wrapped clean bundle of clothes to me. When I returned to my hotel I discovered five pairs of M & S pants had been stolen! Since then I have had a policy of never using a foreign laundrette. Clean undies aside let's get on with today's blog. Having missed out at the London Olympics I thought I would drop by the Beijing Olympic village to see if I could ... read more
September 3rd 2012
Apres etre revenus de la muraille, nous nous sommes promenes un peu dans Beijing, pres de la gare ou l'autobus nous a laisse (on a pris l'autobus car le train de retour suivant etait 2h plus tard). Nous avons visite un quartier moins touristique, et plus pauvre que les autres vus jusqu'a maintenant. Puis nous avons soupe dans un resto franco-vietnamien qui etait dans notre guide de voyage, ok, c'est pas du vrai chinois, mais tant pis!! On pouvait se faire comprendre! Nous sommes ensuite alles voir le quartier olympique, des jeux de 2008. Nous avons vu le fameux "cube d'eau", mais de loin car tout le site etait cloture, il semblait y avoir un evenement quelconque. Nous avons aussi vu le "nid d'oiseau", de plus pres cette fois. Tout le site (ce qu'on a pu ... read more
August 18th 2012
The past few days have been filled with orientation and exploring the area surrounding our campus here at UIBE. My friends and I have found the "wu market" or a Chinese equivalent to a Walmart not too far from our dorm. Unhappy to see that the lines in the wu market are just as bad as in Walmart, I took my time shopping around for some essentials! Toilet paper and bottled water are a must as well as some things to eat for breakfast. It's difficult to eat rice for every meal so I purchased some oatmeal and brown sugar that can be easily made with the boiled water from the kitchen! As for lunch and dinner we have been experimenting different places and types of Chinese food. A lot of what we've been eating has ... read more
June 21st 2012
Domingo eu fui e corri, uhulll! Tive que caminhar metade do tempo, mas não fiz um tempo muito ruim p alguém que não corre. 5km em 39 minutos... 7,5km/h... a última eu não fui! A corrida era só p mulheres, a primeira do tipo na China, e era muita mulher mesmo: 5,000 participantes. Ai vc me pergunta: Gostou? Gostar de correr eu não gosto não, mas foi legal participar. Vai começar a correr agora? Quem sabe... Faria de novo? Com certeza. Depois dessa exclusiva entrevista comigo mesma, deixa eu falar de trabalho. Essa semana eu finalmente apresentei o que me pediram p preparar na minha primeira semana. Falei sobre os preparativos p Olimpíadas no Rio, na verdade aproveitei um trabalho que fiz p faculdade e falei sob... read more
Advertisement
Day 4: Olympic Stadium & Temple of Heaven
Published: December 20th 2011Asia » China » Beijing » Olympic Park
December 20th 2011
Today was a more low-key day and I (and my legs) am thankful for it! We started off by heading to Olympic Park. We had driven by the Bird's Nest, as the Stadium is called, several times already, and were looking forward to seeing it close-up. Olympic park is HUGE and was completely built in about four years to host the 2008 Summer Olympics. At the height of construction nearly 17,000 workers worked on the stadium. The 100,000 tons of steel used to construct the stadium was all manufactured in China. 7800 square meters of grass for the field was laid in 24 hours. The Bird's Nest cost $423 million (US) to construct and was designed by two Swiss architects based on studying Chinese ceramics. The stadium currently seats 80,000 people (321 less than Camp Randall). ... read more
November 17th 2011
In August/September of this year, we hosted a Chinese University of Minnesota student named Vivi at our home while she waited for her campus housing to become available. Yesterday, we were honored to meet her father and her English tutor who is an English professor at the University of Beijing. We visited Baihai Park where we enjoyed a scenic view of Beijing from the top of the White Dagoba and a relaxing stroll around Qiónghuá (琼华) Island. We then braved the Beijing traffic in a taxi during rush hour to visit The Beijing National Stadium (aka "The Bird's Nest".) The Bird's Nest is an incredible structure and we were filled with awe when we remembered the Olympic history that was made there in 2008. The Nest is so massive that it could likely take an entire ... read more
Old meets new, Tiananmen Square to The Birds Nest.
Published: September 17th 2011Asia » China » Beijing » Olympic Park
September 17th 2011
So its my turn to write the blog, so beer in hand and with Tomo on the opposite bunk getting Chinese lessons from our very nice and helpful Korean room mate here it goes! Today was has been much more successful than yesterday but this is probably down to our state of mind more than anything. Tomo apologies for his negativity, but our success did in fact start last night. After the blog had been written and finally uploaded we headed out for some food. The area near our hostel in Beijing had been transformed for the evening with many vendors selling street food in which you snack, buying many dishes from different sellers who shout franticly to attract your attention. An hour or so was enough and we were still shattered from the travelling so ... read more
July 5th 2011
In the morning we headed straight to the Summer Palace using the Metro, very easy. They pass your bags through a metal detector! And so cheap. Tresa's boyfriend Jose arrived from Spain the night before...felt lucky that every time i was near they switched back to speaking English!! But i must learn Spanish!! The Summer Palace is pretty big. It's a collection of buildings surrounding a lake. Some of the buildings originate from the Jin dynasty although the majority of it dates much later from the Qing dynasty. Again...this will get boring i know...but HOW MANY TOURISTS! We got stuck following a stream of them around the lake, but we finally broke free! Our main hope was to climb the steps to see the Temple of Buddhist Virtue. Pretty awesome. Checked out other buildings with less ... read more
March 13th 2011
So as I mentioned in the last Beijing post, Alicia’s friend was so kind to e-mail us an itinerary complete with how to get around. Today’s agenda had us taking a two different bus routes to get to the Great Wall, another to get to the Olympic Stadium & Aquatic Center, and another to get back to the hotel. Since we weren’t wise enough to print off this e-mail before leaving Zhengzhou, we didn’t have a hard copy to carry around with us. Just then, a wonderful idea…take a snapshot of it on the camera and reference that every time we need directions. We left our room and asked the front desk associate where the closest Bus 5 stop was and headed in that direction. We were thrilled when we saw that the first No. 5 ... read more
