Κίνα - Πεκίνο 2008

How to Travel to the Summer Olympics

How to Get Tickets
The Beijing 2008 Olympics kick off August 8, but tickets are already going fast. Skip the official website of the Olympic Games: Only residents of mainland China are eligible to order tickets through it. For Americans, the best way to buy tickets is through CoSport (877/457-4647, cosport.com). Alternatively, if you're willing to pay marked-up prices, you can snap up tickets from ticket brokers, such as RazorGator (800/542-4466, razorgator.com), which obtain tickets and resell them a few months in advance of the Games.

CoSport's ticket-request lottery—the first round of sales—is over. Check CoSport's website in October for announcements on when it will put its remaining tickets on sale. "Typically, the most popular events are the opening and closing ceremonies, swimming, diving, and women's gymnastics," says Donald Williams, vice president for sales and marketing at Cartan Tours, which offers vacation packages. Other favorites are track-and-field events and soccer matches, says Williams, who has sold packages for 13 Olympic Games (summer and winter).

Your best bet is to nab tickets for track-and-field events. Seats are comparatively easy to come by, given the enormity of Beijing's National Stadium (91,000 seats) and the high frequency of track-and-field events, which happen twice a day from Aug. 15 to 22. Williams also recommends looking into sports that wouldn't ordinarily interest you. "People always thank me for that advice afterwards," he says.

Good news: Ticket prices are lower for most events in the Beijing Olympics than they were during the Athens Olympics—as low as $5 per person for preliminary baseball and $9 per person for preliminary basketball or preliminary beach volleyball. Of course, some hot tickets are exceptions, such as those for the best seats during the opening ceremony, which cost nearly $800 a pop.

Where to Stay
Pricing premiums are in effect for Beijing hotels from August 6 to 24, and by now, Olympic officials, delegates, sponsors, and tour operators have sewn up the city's rooms. For example, a standard room at the InterContinental Beijing Financial Street—ordinarily $185 a night—is going for roughly $750 a night. Worse, the rooms during the 18-day period were all booked up by last January. A hotel clerk says these reservations are 80 percent paid up, so possibilities for cancellation are slim. Plus, the waiting lists are growing.

So, unless you are planning to arrange a homestay—rare in Beijing's cramped quarters—you should consider buying a package tour. For example, Cartan Tours (800/818-1998, cartan.com) offers packages at varying prices and types of hosting (fully guided or semi-independent). Packages can run as short as five days and typically include airfare, transfers, breakfasts, public transportation, and other services. You can also add side trips to the Ming tombs and the Great Wall—remote, must-see sights.

The least expensive option is to skip Beijing and instead visit a cohost city that isn't drawing as many visitors, such as Hong Kong (for equestrian), Qingdao (for sailing), and Shanghai (for preliminary soccer).

Getting Around Beijing
Navigating China's capital will be less intimidating than you might think. Even though Beijing is a sprawling city, the bulk of events—including the most popular ones—will take place within the confines of the Olympic Green, which is about six miles north of the Forbidden City. The Olympic Green is home to the new National Stadium, National Aquatics Center, National Indoor Stadium, Olympic Green Tennis Center, and other centerpiece structures. The area around Peking University, west of the Olympic Green, hosts wrestling, table tennis, and martial arts. Canoeing takes place in the northeastern part of the city. The area due west of Beijing's city center is where cycling, basketball, baseball, and shooting events take place.

How to Use Frequent Flier Miles
Air transportation is sometimes an optional component of packages. Cartan Tours allows frequent flyers to obtain their tickets using miles and to subtract the price of airfare without penalty. If you have enough miles, this is a good option, as group airfares are typically not discounted for the Olympics.

Beijing Uncut

"A lot of locals live there," Tony says. "It's one of the few places where you can get a sense of how Beijing people used to live before they moved into the tall apartment buildings."

Shops selling antiques, traditional Chinese clothing, and souvenirs line Yandaixie, which winds its way toward the lake shown at the end of the video clip. Paddleboats are available for rent, and there is a cluster of lively restaurants and street food stands.

"The most popular street food is lamb skewers, usually cooked by people from Xingjiang, a largely Muslim province in western China," says Tony, who admits to the occasional late-night snack after hanging out at hip No Name Bar nearby.

Familiar with the local scene, Tony chose to film around sunset on July 31, 2007. "I like shooting during that time of day when the sky still has light, but the streetlights are on," he says. "The evening is really when Houhai comes alive."

Reflections on Rapidly-Changing Beijing

Beijing, formerly known as Peking, is the capital of China and perhaps China's most famous city. Because of the 2008 Summer Olympics games, the city has experienced a massive influx of government cash so that it will become China's massive showcase to the world. As soon as the International Olympic Committee announced Beijing as its choice in 2001 for the 2008 games, the government announced a new goal: that each resident of the city would learn one hundred English phrases. Construction of the massive and impressively modern Olympic facilities began soon after. As a result, such architectural wonders as those dubbed "the Bird's Nest" (the National Stadium) and "the Water Cube" (the National Aquatics Center) have been keenly debated in popular and architectural journals around the world for their avant-garde designs. The city has also revamped its public transportation system so that several million people will be able to be transported daily from Beijing's hotels to the Olympic events on the outskirts of the city.

Beyond the obvious appeal of the Olympics, Beijing is a most fascinating city that has been at the center of some of history's most important events. The most visible architectural wonders date from the last dynasty, the Qing (1644-1911), when the Manchus who ruled China left their distinctive cultural aesthetics on the city. In addition to the Forbidden City, where the various emperors traditionally lived, the imperial family's pleasure palaces remain as well, including the Summer Palace, with its multicolored, exquisitely painted buildings, lush grounds, and perhaps most impressive of all, Marble Boat, which the Empress Dowager Cixi famously built using the funds supposedly earmarked to build a real navy for China in the last nineteenth century. Prince Gong's Mansion, the garden palace of one of the princes from the reign of Emperor Xianfeng (1851-62) is every bit as opulent as Versailles, with its lakes, swans, halls, and private opera house (with daily performances for visitors), as well as mysterious life-prolonging feng shui symbols like the bat-shaped pond, the Longevity Pavilion, and calligraphy carved into stone. Domestic tourists from as far away as the Burma border flock to this exotic place, so it is also a fabulous place to people watch, as Han Chinese and ethnic minority tourists far outnumber Westerners.

For even older historical sites, one can visit the Ming dynasty (1388-1643) Drum Tower or the many altars of the Temple of Heaven, which also has the famed Echo Wall, where a word whispered at one end of the curved wall can be heard at the other end.

Even older yet, the Mongol-built Beihai Park, which is believed to have been the original location of Kublai Khan's palace, now holds many historical treasures including the White Degoba—built for a seventeenth-century visit by the Dalai Lama—and the famed Nine Dragons Screen, a symbol of imperial power.

Because Beijing was the capital of China under Mongol, Han, and Manchu rule (three different ethnicities), the city's diversity is present in its architectural history. It is likewise very obviously diverse in the present. There are mosques, Daoist temples, Buddhist temples, Christian churches, and of course the most famous landmarks of Communist party power.

The Great Hall of the People, located on the western side of Tiananmen Square, is where the National People's Congress meets. Also off Tiananmen, Mao's portrait still hangs on the Gate of the Heavenly Peace, where Mao first proclaimed the birth of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949. And Chairman Mao himself is still available for viewing, as his mausoleum is located on the southern end of Tiananmen.

For those interested in contemporary politics, the vast Tiananmen Square, where pro-democracy demonstrators lived, danced, and were driven away at gunpoint in 1989, is fully open to the public. Today, however, families are more apt to be flying kites, riding bicycles, or taking pictures in front of Mao's portrait than staging political protests and the square is well guarded by soldiers and plainclothes policemen.

Of course, Beijing is also a very modern city replete with dance clubs, jazz clubs, bars, world-class restaurants, art museums, galleries, shopping malls, glittering five-star hotels, Western and Beijing opera houses, and all the other hallmarks of contemporary urban society. However, it would be a shame to visit Beijing without investigating some of the city's remaining hutongs—mazelike alleys with courtyard homes that represent the nonimperial, pre-Communist Party Beijing, the true essence of Beijing's residents. Most of the hutongs have been razed to make way for businesses and high-rise apartment buildings, but near the Forbidden City, a historical zone has been created to preserve some of Beijing's most famous indigenous architecture.

Chinese Etiquette Tips

1) Banquets. You don't have to eat everything (you can't possibly anyway, there will be too much food). But try a little of every dish by putting some on your plate or rice bowl. You don't have to eat it, but as foreign guest, you're supposed to be served first. If you don't try something, your host will be embarrassed—and most likely, will put it on your plate for you.

2) Bargaining. Open air markets, privately run stores are best for bargaining. (Large department stores have set prices.) Remember to establish a friendly rapport first. You are creating a relationship with the merchant, not a price war. Think of it this way: Bargaining is to the Chinese what seduction is to the French. Shouting, arguing, and pointing are not very seductive. Smiling, being friendly, offering to buy more for a better price are. And don't be afraid to ask, "Can you offer me a better price?"

3) Cars. Never, ever assume pedestrians have the right of way. Cars will not necessarily stop for you. Cross with a group if possible at a designated crosswalk. A car won't stop for a single person necessarily but will stop for a group because the driver doesn't want the car to be dented. Chinese really love their cars.

4) Chopsticks. Don't point with them at other people's faces. Don't stab your food with them like toothpicks. Don't lick them. And by all means don't stick them upright in your rice bowl—that's how the Chinese honor the dead at graves.

5) Face. Never shout even when someone has done something wrong. Losing your temper will only make the other person feel that he or she has lost face (i.e. dignity) and will often cause that person to refuse to take responsibility for a problem . Best to smile, keep friendly, and persistently ask the person to *help you* solve whatever problem has arisen.

6) Male-Female Relationships. Alas, the image of the loose American woman perpetuated by Hollywood movies is alive and well globally including in China. If a man makes unwanted advances to you, say loudly the Chinese word for "No," (bu) which is pronounced like the English word "Boo!" If you say it forcefully, it will be in the correct tone. If you are a man, don't be touchy-feely with Chinese women lest they think you are propositioning them.

7) Public Displays of Affection. While younger Chinese can be as openly demonstrative as Westerners, if not more so, older Chinese are not used to PDAs. Be aware of your surroundings. Around older Chinese anything more than holding hands with your partner or a quick peck on the check might embarrass people.

8) Respect for Elders. It's fine to open doors and give up a seat to an older person of either gender. And don't be offended if younger Chinese—male or female—offer you an arm going up stairs or other assistance if you are older. They don't think you're infirm. They're just trying to be polite.

9) Smiling. Chinese smile for more reasons than Americans. A smile can mean the person is embarrassed, trying to be helpful, curious, happy or friendly. In the middle of an argument, smiling means that the speaker doesn't want this to become personal. When all else fails, smile in China. It shows you have no ill intentions and can work wonders in getting better service.

10) Tipping. If you plan to return to a restaurant, then tip. Guidebooks say not to, but in fact most Chinese know enough about the Western world to know that tipping is practiced regularly in other countries. Tips are rarely (in our experience, never) refused and create goodwill.

(πηγή: www.budgettravel.com)