Beijing Olympic Park

So, it turns out that Beijing Olympic Park is about a 20 minute bike ride from my house.  This is the main plaza.  Just out of the picture on the right is the famous "Water Cube."  How my picture turned out with so few people is odd, as the whole place was MOBBED with visitors.

The Bird's Nest!!!

I was interested in the architecture of the exo-skeleton.  I bet you are too, Marl.  So here's a few for you.

It costs 50 RMB (8 USD) to go into the Bird's Nest.  I found the seat color pattern kind of cool.

Turns out, you can pay a bit of extra cash to both stand directly on the track itself and/or take part in some Segway racing.

So, some pictures of how the Bird's Nest has features that would NEVER fly in the United States.  No cup-holders.

No escalators and even though I didn't take a picture, about 80% of toilets in the Men's bathroom were squat.  I'm surprised there wasn't an outrage about that!

The Olympic "Pagoda"

Not sure what's going on here.  But this must be in the Olympic Park area as the park extends far north of where the main structures are.

The Olympic Flame

They've turned a large portion of the Water Cube into a Water Slide Park

But apparently, one can pay (it's expensive) to swim in the Olympic Warm Up pool.  I think I have to head over and swim where Michael Phelps did!