2008 Beijing Olympics

As the 2008 Olympics in Beijing nears, construction is in full force. Also out in full force are the Olympic Flagship Stores (as well as the many copies you can find in the streets). During our stay in Beijing we took many different pictures of the different Olympic advertisements and mascots throughout the city. We also learned the story behind the mascots of this year's Olympics.

Like the Five Olympic Rings from which they draw their color and inspiration, Fuwa will serve as the Official Mascots of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, carrying a message of friendship and peace -- and good wishes from China -- to children all over the world.

Designed to express the playful qualities of five little children who form an intimate circle of friends, Fuwa also embody the natural characteristics of four of China's most popular animals -- the Fish, the Panda, the Tibetan Antelope, the Swallow -- and the Olympic Flame.

Each of Fuwa has a rhyming two-syllable name -- a traditional way of expressing affection for children in China. Beibei is the Fish, Jingjing is the Panda, Huanhuan is the Olympic Flame, Yingying is the Tibetan Antelope and Nini is the Swallow.

When you put their names together -- Bei Jing Huan Ying Ni -- they say "Welcome to Beijing," offering a warm invitation that reflects the mission of Fuwa as young ambassadors for the Olympic Games.

Fuwa also embody both the landscape and the dreams and aspirations of people from every part of the vast country of China. In their origins and their headpieces, you can see the five elements of nature -- the sea, forest, fire, earth and sky -- all stylistically rendered in ways that represent the deep traditional influences of Chinese folk art and ornamentation.

If you're interested in the full details behind each character, click here to go to the official site.

Olympic Flagship Store on WangFujing.

Inside the store.

This is a picture of a souvenier we had purchased to comemorate the Beijing Olympics. It has 5 pins, one for each of the mascots. We chose this item not only because it had all five mascots, but because it was the only item we could find that actually told the story of how the mascots came to be.

Because there are five different characters, they are able to sell each one individually (some in boxed sets) and make a killer profit.

Mugs and cups galore!

Key chains.

The Forbidden City.

Temple of Heaven.

The Water Cube (see below for details).

Another version of the Water Cube.

Temple of Heaven.

Yet another version of the Water Cube.

Forbidden City / Tian An Men Square Gate

The Great Wall of China.

The Bird's Nest (see story below).

This countdown, courtesy of OMEGA was near the WangFujing Shopping area.

Inside the OMEGA store.

The current work in progress, the National Aquatic Center, also known as the Water Cube. This landmark building of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, located inside the Beijing Olympic Green. The planning area of the NSC is 62950m², and the total floor area is 65,000 - 80,000m², in which the underground component is not less than 15,000 m².

The National Aquatics Center will be the venue for swimming, diving, synchronized swimming and water-polo final during the Olympic Games. The total seating capacity is 17,000, including 6,000 permanent and 11,000 temporary for Games which will be removed post-Games, then the National Aquatics Center will become the venue for various activities such as aquatic sports, swimming, fitness and recreation. Click here to view more information on the Water Cube, including a 3D Flash Tour.

The National Stadium, also known as the Bird's Nest islocated on the Olympic Green. It will be the venue for athletics and football during the Olympic Games. The total seating capacity is 91,000 with a total land surface of 258,000 sq m. The Stadium is to stage sports events at national and international levels, as well as cultural and entertaining activities after the Olympics games. Click here for more info and 3D pictures.

3D artwork of the Water Cube and Bird's Nest.

PS. For those of you who have been our updates via email subscription, the posted videos have to be viewed from the website - so click back to http://aviewfromkorea.blogspot.com/ !!

The Great Wall of China

The day after our arrival in Beijing, we took our first tour to The Great Wall of China. The tour was roughly 7 hours including travel time, lunch and a few other stops along the way. This was a really awesome tour, the history of the Wall and actually being able to walk along it was really amazing. We also had a great tour guide which made the day that much more fun!

The weather was fairly cold, but by the same token, it was nice not to climb the wall in the sweltering heat with 5x the people! However, we would still go back to see the wall during the warmer season.

History (courtesy of Wikipedia):

The Great Wall of China is a series of stone and earthen fortifications in China, built, rebuilt, and maintained between the 5th century BC and the 16th century to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire during the rule of successive dynasties. Several walls, referred to as the Great Wall of China, were built since the 5th century BC. The most famous is the wall built between 220 BC and 200 BC by the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang; little of it remains; it was much farther north than the current wall, which was built during the Ming Dynasty.

The Great Wall stretches over approximately 6,508 km (4,000 miles) from Shanhaiguan in the east to Lop Nur in the west, along an arc that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia, but stretches to over 6,700 km (4,160 miles) in total. At its peak, the Ming Wall was guarded by more than one million men. It has been estimated that somewhere in the range of 2 to 3 million Chinese died as part of the centuries-long project of building the wall. (Wikipedia)

Entrance to the Great Wall is a tourist trap, equipped even with a roller coaster type ride to the top! There is also a fake wall built a few miles before the Badaling that was built for overflow tourists. Our tour guide informed us that even though, "in China, we can copy anything," the Badaling section of the Great wall was authentic.







We took a kind of rollercoaster ride up to tower 4 and then climbed to tower 8 on foot. I don't think anyone had a choice but to use the rollercoaster, unless you climbed up from somewhere on the other side of the mountain.







The Great Wall loaded with tourists like us!






























The Great Wall is coagulated with Chinese labors' wisdom, sweat and toil. Ancient records report that at least one million slaves and prisoners of war were conscripted to build the great wall which followed the contour of the land, taking advantage of natural defenses. As many died from exhaustion and starvation while working on this colossal task, the Wall was also known as "the longest cemetery in the world."


The bricks, rocks and lime used to build the wall had to be carried up to the mountains by bare shoulders. Those who succeeded in climbing the wall today are often regarded as "real heroes", from this we should realize the difficulty in climbing the wall, and can imagine how difficult it is to build the Great Wall without modern machinery at that time. Chairman Mao proclaimed that any person who wanted to be a real hero must climb the Great Wall, which has inspired many ambitious visitors. All tourists now know Chairman Mao's famous words, "He who does not reach the Great Wall is not a real hero!"





"He who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a true man" -Mao Zedong

"This is a Great Wall and only great people with a great past could have a great wall and such a great people with such a great wall will surely have a great future" -Richard Nixon

New Year's Eve 2008 - Bangkok, Thailand

Our last night in Thailand happened to be December 31st, 2007 and we spent the evening at Central World in Bangkok. Have you ever seen the countdown around the world on TV where they show you live footage of NYE in Times Square - New York, London-UK, Seoul-Korea, Tokyo-Japan, Sydney-Australia etc? It's even better than on TV! There were hundreds of thousands of people there having a great time, listening to the bands and waiting for the clock to strike midnight 2008 (and surprisingly, we had more elbow room than we have had in Korea and especially more than at the Seoul fireworks, wow!).

In a previous post, we mentioned that we met our friend James on the flight to Thailand, who was also an English teacher in Korea. Well, we met up with him while in Bangkok and made our way to mingle with the crowd at Central World, and of course we stopped at a 7-11 on the way for beer (in 1 square block we saw FOUR 7-11 stores, all stocked with cheap beer! :).

The theme for the countdown was Hands 2008: Bidding farewell to the old year while greeting New Year is a festive practice significantly embraced by people around the world as it’s the last biggest event of the year that leads to a fresh beginning. Hands Bangkok Countdown 2008 is designed to be an international symbol of the celebrations for Thais and visitors. Bangkok is a center of tourism in Southeast Asia, full of lively attractions and facilities for tourists. Click here for the official website.


3hrs, 56min, 11seconds to go!



Central World!



The bridge was also decorated for the event.



There were bright lights on the buildings everywhere you looked.



Krista and Prada.



Center stage, the globe was an digital display that also showed the countdown and the Hands 2008 logo.







So many people!



Ahhh Chang... how we miss your great taste..... :( If only we could get better beer here...



More lights!





It was a very large and upbeat crowd.



This was the largest LCD TV by Panasonic - they were showing a close-up of center stage as well as NYE around the world.





7minutes, 47 seconds to go!





Happy New Year 2008!!





Here is a short clip of center stage and the crowd.



It's a bit late, but Happy New Year 2008!! We miss our friends and family back home - this is our way of keeping in touch with what we have been up to during our travels (and providing info to anyone who is interested in travelling or teaching), we do encourage emails from anyone at jonandkrista@gmail.com. We also hope you will add your email to our blog list (top right of this page) you will receive an email copy of our blog posts when new ones are available.

Take care!