Danezia,
Welcome back.
Beijing has always been my most favorite Chinese city. It was capital of Yuan Dynasty (Mongol Empire, thirteen century), Ming Dynasty, and Qing Dynasty. Beijing has rich ancient culture. Olympics 2008 will be a good opportunity for Beijing to show its long and rich history as well as its modernity achieved after Chinese reform started a quarter century ago. I believe that the world athletes, journalists, and tourists will be impressed by this unique city.
Beijing is one of best planed cities and roads are oriented very regularly. Several key tourist sites include:
Chinese Great Wall (it is located about one-hour-drive-time-on-expressway away from Beijing.),
Forbidden City - the world largest royal palace and 600+ years old,
Summer Palace – the world largest former royal garden,
Tiananmen Square – the world largest city square,
Numerous history and art museums,
Many beautiful lakes and parks,
Many good restaurants with Chinese cuisine and foreigh cuisines,
Many futuristic architecture including National Theater and TV Center (some of them are designed by European architects),
Skyscrapers (Beijing skyscrapers are quite impressive although Beijing does not have as many tall skyscrapers as several other Chinese cities.), and
Gold Resources Shopping Mall (It is currently the world second largest. It has 1000+ stores and 0.6 million square meters of floor areas. The world largest shopping mall is currently in southern China. Golden Resources Shopping Mall will be the world fourth largest shopping mall during the Olympics time because two other larger Chinese shopping malls will be built in 2008.)
Beijing is a culture and academic center of China, with over 100 of universities and institutes.
Transportation: Beijing has very developed subway systems, six rings of expressways, and arguably the world largest airport terminal at the time of Olympics.
Beijing sometime gets sandstorms (which could be the consequence of ecological decay) and I hope that it will not occur during Olympics. I also hope that the air quality will improve during Olympics.
See pictures from this thread for ancient and modern Beijing
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showth...t=372676&pp=20
Olympics opening ceremony is planned to start at 2008/8/8 8:8:8 pm. 8 is auspicious number in China because the pronunciation of “8” is close to the pronunciation of “becoming prosperous” in Chinese.
Rendering pictures of Stadiums that will be used in Olympics 2008
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showth...4&page=3&pp=20
Most recent update of Olympic Stadiums under construction
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showth...&page=17&pp=20
Beijing is already one of most expensive cities in the world, but not as expensive as Copenhangen yet although not too far away.
City Mayors: Cost of living - The world's most expensive cities
Beijing means north capital. ("Bei" means north and "Jing" means capital in Chinese) The old English name "Peking" was easier to pronouce for westerners. Tokyo means east capital ("to" means east and "kyo" means capital in Japanese. Although Japan uses Chinese writing characters for its capital name, the Japanese pronuciation is quite different from Chinese.)
By the way, has EU made final decision for the accession of Romania? I have not read any news about it.