We are now in Beijing and wanted to Olympic Park, Bird's Nest and Water Cube on our own. We are staying at the wonderful new hotel, the opposite house, in Chaoyang District. Any suggestions from FT on getting to Olympic Park, Bird's Nest and Water Cube and touring on our own?

Walk east down Gongti Beilu until you get to the 3rd Ring road, go down into the subway, this will be Line 10. Buy a ticket from the machine (2 RMB each), go north (toward "Bagou"), get off at Beitucheng station. Maps in the stations and the trains are in Chinese and English, as are announcements. If Line 8 is open, transfer at Beitucheng station and it will take you to the Olympic Green. If it is not open, exit the subway and walk north (about 20 minutes) until you reach the south end of the Green. I haven't been there in awhile, but I thought it was open for wandering around. Getting into a peek of the individual buildings requires purchase of a ticket I believe. You can also taxi there, tell taxi driver "Bei sihuan, niao chao." Your hotel should be able to write this down in Chinese for you. Taxi from hotel to there should be about RMB 30.

Tickets for the Water Cube are bought (for �30) from booths off the northwest corner of the building, and it is entered from the east. It's open 8.30-4.30 at weekends and 8.30-6 on weekdays, but if there are events on (shows, not sport--these buildings are all white elephants) then access may be cancelled. Don't bother asking your concierge as he'll have no idea, but take pot luck.

Although otherwise there's nothing much to see inside, to view the light filtering through the bubbles is worthwhile. Entering the Bird's Nest is another matter. The ticket office is by entrance D and access through entrance E, open 9–6, �50. The main impact of this building is from the outside. It would be worth buying a ticket if access was allowed to the passages and stairways within the mesh of girders, but you're only permitted to go straight through to the pitch, at which point you might just as well be in any other middling size stadium.

In general the space has little to do with real Beijing, and during the week has the feeling of an ultra-modern ghost town (but avoid weekends unless you want to spend a long time lining up for tickets). Other sights include the Data Centre (think filtering and censorship) which is a mixture of giant silicon chip and circuit board; a retro TV tower; and the metro station itself, full of cod traditional Beijing themes including a wall made of siheyuan roof tiles, and quite possibly the planet's most arty.

For an antidote get off at Beitucheng on your way back, currently the southern terminus of Line 8, and take a walk along the remnants of the Yuan dynasty city wall.

Peter N-H
China

Is it not open sometimes? Does anybody know how is line 8 these days, or (better) in may?

If there is some sort of special event going on inside the Olympic Park, Line 8 may be restricted access to ticket or pass holders. However, special events being held there are rare. Also, Line 8 is only a minor spur route right now serving the Olympic Green and Forest Park, so if the Powers That Be want to, they can shut it without inconveniencing most of the population here. Some things you can't predict, this is China. In the unlikely event Line 8 is shut during your visit, you can walk or taxi the balance of the distance.

Curiously, there are two line 8 stations for the Olympic area and they are each about a 10 minute walk from the main area. For some reason, no station was built AT the water cube or bird's nest.

The few times I have been at Beitucheng, line 8 was always running.

As to visiting the places, Peter calls it correctly.

Is the Water Cube open to the 'public' to swim? Thought of trying to enter to do some laps....seriously!

Closed for renovation.

water cube news:
http://www.water-cube.com/en/news/venue/

Did I hear that they demolished the Birds Nest by implosion? If so, why?



DD

You heard wrong. There was never any implosion because there was never really any Birds Nest. It was all just a clever counterfeit image done by advanced holographic projections and mirrors.

More likely the stadium will fail due to rust, corrosion and splits in the structure.

Wikipedia mentions its futures is uncertain, due to lack of events, however it also mentions it was recently converted to a snow theme park.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8442051.stm

Let's see what's going on this spring.

This seems to be the most appropriate thread, although a little old.

I swim and would like to swim while visiting Beijing in a few weeks. I've swum in a few Olympic pools (Munich, Barcelona, and Tokyo), and would love to swim in the Water Cube.

According to this site:
https://www.travelchinaguide.com/att...water-cube.htm

Much of the facility is now a water park. It looks like you can swim in the training pool for Y50.

Has anyone been out there recently? Would it be worth an hour+ trek on the subway each way to get there?
Anything else to see nearby? Looks like the rest of the Olympic park is there, anything notable I should see?
This will be in mid-November, so I'm guessing sunset will be by 6pm, so I could do something else first, then swim (since it is inside I don't need to waste daylight).

I'm sure there's other pools closer to my hotel, and I may try to swim at those too. But there's something about swimming in an Olympic pool ^

Just a quick update, in case anyone else is interested.

I did indeed get to swim at the Water Cube on Sunday (13 Nov). Some random notes:
* I didn't realize a subway station was closed, and ended up taking the line 15 to Olympic Green (purple on most maps). In the end, that was better.
* Not sure if this happens all the time or if there was an event, but you had to go through security and the entire block of the Water Cube & Bird's Nest was fenced off. On Sunday night, there was one entry, about 1/4 mile south of that subway station.
* The hours of the Water Cube are rather generous (even on Sunday it was open until 10pm).
* Cost to get in was RMB60, about $8.75 US (at this time). You need a ticket; the ticket booth was closed, but there were people outside selling tickets. I thought it was fishy, but I didn't have a choice, and it worked.
* It is a hike inside to the check-in desk to swim. They'll give you a locker key, and make sure you have a suit and cap (both are required). Goggles are optional. I didn't have a cap, but they had some loaners (I'd recommend having one, as these weren't that good)
* The pool was divided in half with something that resembled a fence. On one half the floor was elevated to only 1m deep, and anyone could swim there. The other half was 2m deep, and to swim there, you need to pass a test.
* The deep water test consisted of treading water (hands out of water) for 30 sec, followed by a 200m swim (any stroke, no time). The end lane of the deep area was dedicated to testing, and they had someone on deck who judged (he didn't speak much English, but had a laminated paper with instructions in English.)
* Once in a lane, be prepared for anything. I went in the, "fast," lane, which really wasn't. I ended up passing one guy about every 200m. I swam about 2500m, including the test.
* When I left, I made the mistake of following my phone's directions, heading to the Olympic Sports Center subway stop, then saw the fence, and remembered the security checkpoint. I had to backtrack, and go to the Olympic Village station, and then I took the Green line (number 8) to leave.

I stayed at the Doubletree hotel, near the Daguanying subway station. The cost to get there (I think) was RMB5 each way, but took a while...I'm guessing 90 min each way.

Note: I got the subway card, where you add/pay as you go (like an Oyster card in London), so I may be off with the subway fare.