China Vacation: Day 4

Today was our day to find things to see.  We didn’t have anything planned so we did a little research online and found that the Olympic Park was close by and might be worth seeing.  I’m glad we went.  It was a great place to visit.  And a ton of locals were there.  It seemed to be the place to take your kids to.  It was about a 45 minute subway ride there.  Turns out that the subway here is cheaper to ride than in Shanghai, according to Mark.  It’s only 2 RMB no matter how many stops. 

We saw these mini rickshaws with stuffed animals.  We thought the kids would love one of these. 

The first thing we noticed on the skyline was this.  

They are observation towers that are in the process of being built.  Unfortunately, they weren’t done.  It would have been cool to go up in them.  We found lots of cool statues and little buildings with Chinese architecture everywhere.

We passed over a few bridges with water underneath.  Turns out that the water is in the shape of a dragon.  Here’s a map of the entire Olympic Park.

The gate to get in to see the Bird’s Nest stadium. 

We had to pay (of course) to see inside the Bird’s Nest stadium.  We first walked in and saw this…

Not very welcoming, huh?  It looked like a dump.  We think that they were cleaning up after some sort of event that included mounds of snow.  I’m still scratching my head on that one too.  I just love the signs we find here.  Here’s one for the “love elevator”.  Hmm…

A whole lot of empty seats going on here. 

Here’s the outside view of the Bird’s Nest.  Aptly named, right? 

After walking around the Bird’s Nest stadium we came across the Water Cube.  Can you tell which building that one is?  This was the aquatic center for the Olympics.  We weren’t able to go inside this building. 

Here’s the tower with the Olympic Rings at the top.  You can see the long courtyard as well.  That thing went on forever. 

We found some authentic Chinese food for lunch in the underground mall right in the middle of Olympic Park.  We were starving. 

After lunch we headed back to the hotel and just hung out.  After a few hours of watching some TV and packing up our stuff we headed to the mall just across the street for some more authentic Chinese food. 

I haven’t had a McDonald’s hamburger in forever.  I’m now reminded why I don’t eat there back in the States.  We were too tired to go far for dinner and we didn’t want to risk eating anywhere that might not agree with us.  Can you tell that Mark has rubbed off on me?  He doesn’t take any chances with food here in China since he got food poisoning a few years ago.  We stick to what we know.