View from underneath...
Water cube from the upper level of the bird's nest.

This should give you a good idea of just how large the stadium is! I believe it holds 93,000 people, which is a number I can't even begin to comprehend. The entire place was packed, and the crowd was very loud/excited. You can actually hear the crowd from quite far away (even for the morning events)!





These are little cars that are driven back and forth to return the discus.

The start of the 100m race. Even though he wasn't trying at this point (since it was only a prelim), I did get to see Usain Bolt (the gold medal winner and WR holder) run.

This is steeple chasing...quite possibly the most ridiculous race I have ever seen. They run around...jumping over giant hurdles...and then climb atop one slightly larger hurdle and into a puddle of water. what!?! why!?

We saw the finals for men's shotput. The US came a bit short, and managed to get the silver medal.

We also saw the finals for the women's 10,000m run. This was a very long race...at first it seemed slightly boring...but it was very exciting toward the end. The woman who won was only the second ever to run the race in under half an hour. They are able to run the final 400m so quickly even after 24 laps!


The Olympic Torch!



Here are some more night views of the park...


You can actually see the tall building on the left hand side of this photo from our dorm building. Yes. That is how close we are to all of the excitement! Some of the basketball teams actually practice at the BLCU (our school) gym. BeiDa (Peking/Beijing University) actually hosts the ping pong matches in their gym (this is where I will be in the Fall).