Today, we got to visit the bird’s nest and the water cube of the 2008 Olympic Games. The bus ride there didn’t take very long and it was a very expansive complex. It was one of the things that I’ve looked most forward to on the trip. I watched the games during the summer and followed Michael Phelps with the rest of the country. When we arrived, I was really excited to see the water cube, but we started with the bird’s nest, which I was also really excited to see as well. We got our tickets and headed inside the stadium, which was a really cool place. It had a large track, with what seemed to be 12 lanes, surrounding a central grassy rectangle. It was neat to see where the best athletes in the world had gathered to compete, but it only made me wish that I could have been there to see the stadium in its prime, during the games. We did get to see a tightrope walker on a rope strung from one end of the stadium’s roof to the other. It was amazing as he went back and forth several times and even laid down on the rope at one point. After a few moments for pictures we adventured up to the upper deck for more pictures before departing the bird’s nest for the water cube. I must comment at this point at how bright the day was, I believe this was one of the brightest days I have experienced, as I had difficulty looking around for almost the entire time we were there. As it turns out, the water cube was closed for renovations, and we could only look at it from the outside. This was slightly depressing as I had waited quite a while to see the cube and now it turns out it doesn’t open until August, but like any problem in life, you just have to deal. We then left the Olympic green and headed back to the hotel for a quick siesta before our next company visit to Lenovo.
We departed for Lenovo at 1330 and arrived a very short time later. We waited in the lobby, only to find out that we were in the wrong building. So after another short bus ride, we arrived at the correct Lenovo location and started our tour. Our tour guide was the best thus far and had the best grasp on English. He began by showing us many of the products that Lenovo developed and are currently on the consumer market. Many of these new computers offer much of the slimmer, more modern looking designs that are demanded in today’s computer market. They also showed us some of their mainstay products, which are the ThinkPad and IdeaPad computer series. I was intrigued by their Ruggedized PC, which made me think of the many military applications, which a tough computer is desired for the tough environment. We continued the tour by then going through the history of how Lenovo was founded. It turns out that that the very first invention was the keyboard which allowed for Chinese users to input the pin-ying version of a character and the traditional character will appear on the screen. As Lenovo continued its development, they focused more on computers and began to develop their own line of computers. We then proceeded to the “fun” part of the tour where we got to see that a production team from Lenovo had actually developed the design of the Olympic torch. We all got to hold the torch and I found it to be a consolation prize for having the water cube closed earlier in the day. We continued the tour to some of their current R&D products which were really neat and had really integrated the computer into one small system. At that point we had really concluded the tour and we then headed back to the hotel.
We then headed out with Krysta to explore some of the streets that had cool shops, and also to experience Beijing at night. We headed down to the cultural Luilichang Street, where we shopped around and got experience a real Chinese market. We also went into a shop and took a look at the swords, which were actually very sharp, so that was pretty cool. We then started towards Tiananmen Square but stopped at a restaurant for dinner. After Matt finally figured out how to pay the people, we headed over to the square to see how it looked in the dark. A lot of the buildings were lit up and it was just kind of a neat place to see at night, even though we couldn’t go into the square at night.
I then lead a group on the subway back to the Olympic green to see the bird’s nest and water cube at night. This was really cool, as the water cube lit up blue and the bird’s nest red. We stayed there briefly before heading back home on the subway. I then was really excited to be going to bed after a pretty long day.