Olympic Park is just a shell of its former self

Today we had a big agenda to fill. I thought we would go visit the Bird's nest at the Olympic Park, Tian An Men square, the Forbidden City, and San Li Tun.

Taking the train to the park took about an hour from where we were. I was looking forward to see my favorite building in all of Beijing which is an office and hotel shaped like the olympic flame. When we got there we were surprised at how desolate the place was. You probably couldn't find a more empty space in all of Beijing. The buildings were starting to rust, the only people around were a few tourists and peddlers, and things were just falling apart. In the pictures below, the paint on the torch was chipping off and the sign that Kimberly is standing next to has lost some of the letters.

They were charging 50 RMB to go inside the Bird's Nest but we didn't really feel like it was worth it because it was just as empty inside as it was outside. I felt bad for some of the people that had to work around the area because the speakers around the park were playing the Beijing Welcomes You theme song to the olympics, so they probably listen to the song over and over again for the past 4 years. 

Next we headed over to Tiananmen Square. There were a lot of people there taking silly pictures of themselves with their cell phones.

This is actually my first time going as well because last time I was studying in Beijing, I arrived in March and all the friends I made had already gone at the beginning of the school year. 

Pretty surprising how huge this place was. Kimberly proved that her education in HK was worth something when she noticed that admission for students in China was 1/2 off, something I didn't notice so I'm glad her semester was worth it. 

After walking about half an hour, all the buildings and statues felt the same, unless you're a cultural or history buff, it was just nice to look at and we wanted to get out before we were even half way done with walking. 

When we got out, I stupidly denied the offer for a cheap ride on the back of a guy's bicycle back to Wang Fu Jing and we ended up getting sort of lost. The walk seriously felt like hours and Kimberly made the observation that after about 3pm, the sun looks like it's setting because of the yellow hue from the pollution in the sky. On our long walk, we stopped for some authentic Beijing jiao zi. 10 for 6 kuai, so 1 dollar. They were good and did not give us food poisoning which is a plus. 

We finally got to Wangfujing, which is a big marketplace with malls and very fancy shops but also contains a food market that has a lot of weird things there like scorpion and starfish on a stick. 

We passed by an arcade and I wanted to check out what advanced video games the young Chinese kids were playing nowadays. What I found was not what I expected. There was a big game with people all around it drinking and smoking and smashing one single button. Some guys had a helper who was shoving coins into the machine for them. I think the object of the game was to catch and shoot the fish that swam by you? I wanted to try but didn't want to make anyone mad.

We couldn't decide what to get for dinner so we decided on getting Peking duck again since it was our last night in Beijing. Dinner was delicious but we did have an uninvited guest at the table.

Last stop was San Li Tun. By this time I had kind of run out of ideas of places that we could visit because while I was studying, I was in class for about 30 hours a week and didn't spend that much time out so if we were to stay any longer in Beijing, I would have needed some help as to where to go next.
San Li Tun is the big party and bar district in Beijing, I of course, as the responsible student never visited here before...

The place was pretty empty considering it was a sunday night otherwise it would have been full of foreigners. We decided to take some cool pictures instead around the malls in the area. I did not realize Chinese people take Christmas time so seriously.