Olympic @ MindSay

Hundreds of thousands of volunteers have begun their roles of ensuring a smoothly run Games this summer. Their services mean that Beijing is equipped to deal with almost anything during the sporting event. This is day one of a new Beijing Olympics Spectators Connecting Center. Those working here are all volunteers,wow buy goldgwho are trained to provide a wide range of Games information to spectators. Each volunteer has a vast knowledge of all the services during the Games,buy wow gold from transport to venue facilities. But it hasn't been an easy task for everyone. One volunteer said "My English was not so good,cheap wow gold and I got to know more about the city. After training from the Beijing Olympic Committee, I can now perform my task well." There are four such centers for spectators in Beijing. They will provide information in multiple languages over the next three months. Spectators from home and abroad can dial the hotline, on 12308,age of conan power leveling to get the information they need. Others are providing services on Beijing's streets. 400,age of conan cheap gold000 volunteers are on duty at over 500 points across the city. They will assist with inquiries, help with translations, and provide emergency services. Some will also hand out guidebooks to tourists. With only 37 days until the Games, the city is in the final stage of preparations. Over 90 percent of the hotels in the the cheapest wow gold city are booked out. Spectators can now get their Olympic tickets from the the ticketing network windows in the city.

BEIJING, Aug. 4 (Xinhua)-- About 160,000 people will attend the Olympic opening ceremony on Friday,buy wow gold according to a Beijing city government official on Monday. About 70,age of conan powerlevelingo000 were guests, VIPs, athletes and actors performing at the ceremony. The remaining 90,000 were the audience, staff and volunteers, said Zhou Zhengyu, the Beijing Municipal Committee of Communications deputy director,cheapest wow gold at a press conference. The authorities have tested a plan to get this huge number of people in and out of the National Stadium,age of conan powerleveling or Bird's Nest, he said. The guests, athletes and artists will take chartered buses and spectators will take public transport. Staff and volunteers will begin working at the Bird's Nest oncheap wow gold Friday morning. The whole Olympic core area, including the Bird's Nest and other stadiums in the Olympic Green, will formally open to the public from 4 p.m. on Friday. "The rush hours will be from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. and after the ceremony," Zhou said. The two rehearsals on July 30 and Aug. 2 tested the plan and proved effective. "We will improve it according to real situations." Zhou said 28 direct non-stop bus routes would link the Olympic core area to the rest of the city, while 48 regular bus routes and three metro lines also connected the area with the city. When the third rehearsal is held on Tuesday, the government plans to add 40 stops along the 28 direct bus routes and extend the operation time of metro lines, in response to public demand. On Friday evening, all metro lines, except the airport line, will operate round the clock. "Many Beijing residents may want to watch the fireworks outside the Bird's Nest on Friday evening. We are still working on a solution about how to manage the situation," Zhou said. "We are confident of providing good traffic service to the Olympic opening." When asked about the traffic after the city adopted the even-odd ban on vehicles based on licence plate numbers,buy eq plat he said the general traffic had been greatly eased but the downtown area with its higher density of population still faced congestion in peak hours. The traffic flow along the city's 20 trunk roads was reduced by about 20 percent but remained heavy. Traffic jams happened along the Second Ring Road where one of the three lanes was reserved for Olympic-related vehicles. "Traffic control will be tighter on Friday. I suggest residents not to drive their own cars and to avoid main routes," Zhou said.

It is exciting to see the pictograms  be unveiled at the two-year countdown to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. The pictograms,which comprise 35 sport icons, are designed on the basic form of seal characters.

 

The seal character is considered one of the five forms of Chinese scripts. People used it for writing in ancient China,thousands years ago. However, it was abandoned and forgotten by most people soon, because of its complex strokes. Nowadays you can only see the seal characters in some special books, and few people have the ability to read them or use them for writing. As for me, I have learned some seal characters in the colleage, and always regard them with distinct aesthetic perception. Maybe it is quite inconvenient to use the seal character for communication in our daily life, but we should not abandon it overall, for it has become a cultural symbol actually. In another word, it should be remembered for its rich cultural connotations.

 

I admire the designers.They are so talented to show us such a wonderful inspiration, which integrates the charm of antient Chinese script with simplified embodiment of modern graphics.

 

Pictograms of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games released by BOCOG on Monday, August 7th, 2006

 

You can compare them with the seal characters below. The words are written as "奥林匹克  北京  二零零八" in modern Chinese script, which mean OLYMPIC BEIJING 2008.

Yeah so I just got a little note in the mail saying that I qualified for the Junior Olympics, strange right?  I never thought those words would ever be spoken by me let alone typed not even in a joking sense.  Well the meet is January 28-29 I get to meet a Olympic swimmer which im excited about to say the least.  This is gonna be pretty cool im competing in the 100 backstroke and 50 freestyle I hate the 50 but who cares?  I don't even really care about the competing to be honest I want this Olympic swimmer to help my stroke as best he can.  The reason I don't care about the competing is quite frankly I don't stand a chance in hell of winning, thats the honest truth nobody try to disagree with me I have seen a lot better swimmers then myself.  So basically I just wanna learn as much as I can.  Well hope everyone is doing good.