My tour guide however told me that it was basically a rundown industrial estate now and not worth my time. She tried really hard to convince me not to go...
... Turns out Faye, my tour leader, is a big fat lier.
Against her advice I decided to cancel my plans to go with the others at the last minuet in favour of checking it out just in case.
The Olympic is fantastic and is in better condition than most regular functioning stadiums I have visited.
I was apparently the resident celebrity in the Olympic park, I had the Chinese ladies queuing up to get photos with me. Note to any potential china goers, pulling the peace sign in photos goes down an absolute storm!
I did manage to get into a little bit of trouble in the stadium. I saw a ticket booth with a sign above it say "air tunnel". Awesome I thought, I don't want to miss an air tunnel, whatever that is.
So I asked at the desk, but the lady said I couldn't go through. So obviously I walked away, ducked, and snuck in right under her nose... He he hee... I got into a room labeled 'tour guide waiting area'. "This is going to be awesome I thought!" And followed the signs for the 'Air Tunnel'. As I came though the last door I was greeted by the 'Air tunnel' in all it's glory... A lift... Just a shit translation... Then the women from the booth burst through shouting in Chinese. So I ran off as fast as I could.
The stadium was quality though, really big, with loads of photos on display of stadium construction and of the games themselves.
Strangely the silver barbs around the birds nest stadium are actually made of concrete, not metal.
After the stadium I walked around the water cube and a couple of other bits before taking a lovely stroll up the river bank decking towards the Olympic forest.
At the fantastically landscaped forest I was greater by another dodgey, yet hilarious translation.
"The Grass is smiling at you, please do not detour."
Brilliant.
On the way home a group of Chinamen struck up a very limited conversation with me in a blend of Mandarin and English.
So I whipped out my phrase book and we helped each other with our pronunciation, it was great fun!
I then got lost in the Houtongs or slums for an hour trying to get to the hotel before stopping at theChinese version of KFC for Noodles called Mr Lee's.
I was a bit stroppy with Faye when I got back as I was annoyed as if she had had her way, I would have missed a great day out. It turned out she had never even been to the Olympic park and was just going on here say. What a dick.
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