Stadium sights in Běijīng
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Bird’s Nest & Water Cube
After the event, walking around the Olympic Sports Center midweek is rather like being stuck in a district of Brazilia or a soul-destroying intersection in Gattica or Alphaville. Traffic lights go red and there are no cars to stop; the green man flashes and there’s no one to cross the brand-spanking-new roads. It’s now hard to imagine that this was the scene of great sporting exultation in August 2008, but such is the fate of most Olympics projects. Squinting in the sun, guards in ill-fitting black combat gear point the occasional group of map-clutching tourists to the Water Cube and the signature National Stadium, which is more colloquially known as the Bird’s Nest. Ente…
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Bird’s Nest
Way up in the north of Chaoyang, the Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium, the stunning centrepiece of the 2008 Olympics, now stands mostly idle. It’s still a remarkable, if rapidly rusting, venue and if you want to relive the events of August 2008, this is the best place to do it. For an extra Y200, you can ascend the medals podium and make like a winner.
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National Stadium & National Aquatics Center
It's now hard to imagine that this was the scene of rapturous sporting exultation in August 2008, but such is the fate of most Olympics projects. You can enter the inspiring National Stadium – colloquially known as the Bird's Nest – in an attempt to recapture the euphoria of '08 and even ascend the medals podium for a further Y200, or simply admire the architecture for free from the outside. In the winter of 2010, it re-emerged as a snow park; visionaries see its future as a shopping mall and entertainment complex. The nearby Water Cube is well worth a gander from the outside, and at the time of writing was set to open as Asia's largest indoor water park.
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