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<\/a><\/p>\nWe next visited Beijing Institute of Technology, a local university, which was chosen to build a warm-up facility for the athletes.\u00a0 Just keep in mind this building was built only a year or two before 2008.<\/p>\n
The facility already looks run-down and is barely used by the students.\u00a0 When walking around inside the gym, it did not feel like this was an Olympic venue.\u00a0 However, the bigger shock came to me when we arrived at Olympic Park.<\/p>\n This was the building where all the media broadcasted from.\u00a0 If this isn’t symbolic of China’s view of what media should be, I don’t know what is!<\/p>\n We crossed the street to enter Olympic Park.\u00a0 My first thoughts overwhelmingly concerned why there was so much cement.\u00a0 There were very few patches of lush grass where people could have enjoyed watching the games outside.\u00a0 I did find it comical that China imported mature (yes, mature) trees from other provinces to help reduce air pollution before the games. Dug them up, moved them hundreds of miles just to be replanted.\u00a0<\/p>\n I really loved the design of the bird’s nest!\u00a0 The angles and shadows were mesmerizing!<\/p>\n The stadium itself was impressive.\u00a0 However, it was just too big. Beijing has no use for a stadium this large.\u00a0 Since the Olympics, this stadium has been pretty much unused.\u00a0 Plus, when it was built, they realized it had a horrible echo.\u00a0 So it can’t even compete by being a good concert venue.<\/p>\n Some of my classmates suggested that they could sell the “Olympic seats” but it’s difficult to think of ways to use this space post-Olympics.<\/p>\n The last venue we visited was the Water Cube.\u00a0 This was where all of the swimming\/water sports were played!<\/p>\n This is the swimming pool where Michael Phelps won all his medals.\u00a0 You can pay about $40 to swim in the pool!\u00a0 They even had scuba diving lessons in the pool!<\/p>\n The Water Cube has done a better job at stay relevant post- Olympics.\u00a0 There were lots of people swimming in the pool and they built a water park inside for children to use in the summer!<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n