Zequilix: 080808

Once in a lifetime date. Of course, unless I live up to 114 years old....Anyway, the Beijing Olympics event is the most anticipated event since......last year???? OK, maybe that was because I was in Shanghai and the mood was there already.

After 4 miserable years, the Olympics is finally back. The 29th Olympics event.The opening ceremony of the Beijing

Olympics is at precisely 8.08 [PM], 8th of August 2008. In a nutshell, 0808080808.
That's pretty cool, huh? The whole ceremony was held in the new Stadium, or more commonly known as the Bird's Nest.
An eye-catching design even from a distance, the stadium proves to be a mind-bogglingly complex artefact as you get up close, and it is just as dizzying on the inside. The Chinese named it the Bird's Nest as soon as its creators - Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, working with Arup and the China Architectural Design and Research Group - unveiled their design five years ago. It measures 320 metres by 297 metres, and is 69 metres high. Its mesmeric steel frame, 41,875 tonnes in all, loops, swoops and swirls over and around the great, red, concrete 91,000-seat arena. What had seemed to be a solid structure from a distance proves to be a filigree Chinese puzzle close up.

There's also this National Aquatic Centre, nicknamed the Water Cube. Of course, the Olympic pools are within it. The bubbles in the gigantic cube are made of 2 layers of high-performance plastic
film called ethylene tetrafluoroethylene or ETFE.The computer-generated double-layer design leaves an empty space in the middle of each bubble, which is used to warm or cool the building with a very ingenious method: the compressors draw hot air out of the bubbles, warmed by the sun, to heat the interior of the building. When they need to cool it down, the system takes air from the ground floor and out of the building, through exhaust ports on the roof (insert Death Star joke here). This kind of structure is also more resistant to earthquakes, which is a plus in the seismic-rocking Beijing.

In time for the Olympics, China also built a new airport, which is said to be the biggest and most

high-tech in the world!! It is built in the shape of a dragon.
The huge, airy interior will have 64 Western and Chinese restaurants, 84 retail shops and a state-of-the-art-baggage handling system, while ultra-fast trains will whiz visitors from the terminals to Olympic venues.
The venue is about 20 per cent larger than London’s Heathrow Airport and is designed to deal with up to 50 million passengers a year.

There's also the Narional Grand Theatre of China, also referred to as "The Egg". It's composed of an opera, a concert hall and 2 theatres joined under a titanium and glass shell that covers the public space. It was designed by Paul Andreu (or something like that). It is an oval dome surrounded by a man-made lake. A hallway beneath the lake leads into the building. The theater is one of several bold new designs constructed for the Beijing Olympics.

Aaaaaaaaaaand.......last but not least, the CCTV (China Central Television Headquarters

designed by Rem Koolhaas and Ole Sheeren.The new centre combines administration with news, broadcasting, studios and programme production - the entire TV process - in a sequence of interconnected activities. It will take the state-run broadcaster to a new level of global broadcasting, expanding from its current operation of running 13 channels to over 200 upon completion.

The new CCTV building is not a traditional structure, but in the form of a three-dimensional continuous cranked loop formed by a 9-storey podium joining two 50-storey high leaning towers, which are linked at the top via a 13-storey cantilevered "overhang" structure at 36 storeys above the ground. The irregular grid on the building’s facades is an expression of the forces travelling throughout its structure.

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Just now, I watched the opening ceremony. It started off with thousands of guys playing some

traditional instrument (Fou drum) which lighted up at times to form patterns in the dark. They did a countdown with these lights and special effects. It was then that I realised (if I'm not mistaken) that Malaysian time was slower than China's time by 12 minutes. (If I'm correct, then it's precisely 12 minutes).

Then, the most amazing thing happened!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The Olympics symbol appeared on the floor and slowly "rose" up into a vertical position!! It was FLOATING IN MID AIR!!!! Colourful "Fairies" were flying around it".

The camera even went under the symbol and it really WAS floating in mid air. The lights were so 3D like it's as if the symbol was made up of lightings which were hung on invisible interlocking circles.

After that, a little girl nine years of age came up to sing. I bet she's the happiest person on Earth. She was chosen among thousands of other young talents. After that, there were some performances. All of them included a large number of people. One of the performances included drawing on a giant scroll of paper (20m long with a width of 11m). Dancers held ink with their hands and danced with the music played on a traditional Chinese instrument. They drew on the paper after it was unrolled. Either it was some computerised effect or something else, the extension from the paper kept on "unscrolling". It

must have been the lighting effects. There was this performance where thousands of guys dressed up like some emperor with scrolls while the drummers "hid" themselves in some kind of "box". The drummers formed patterns with the boxes by moving up and down. From far, it looks like it was a computerised machine because it was so well coordinated. When it was over, the drummers opened up their boxes and waved at the crowd.

There were other memorable performances such as the one whereby Lang Lang the famous pianists played the piano while "Yellow People" with lightings on them ran around the piano. A little girl sat next to him as he played. Halfway into the

performance, near the ending, the girl who sang solo just now (as mentioned) "flew" above the whole thing.

When it was almost time for the marching in, "2 astronauts came down from space"and touched Earth. A giant globe rose from the centre of the stadium. There were gymnasts on it hung to strings

and performed sideways. It looked like they were defying gravity. British soprano Sarah Brightman and China's famous singer Liu Huan stood on top of the globe singing the Olympic theme song, "You and Me", composed by Chen Qigang, music director of the opening ceremony.

After a loong loooooooong time of marching in, they FINALLY

lighted up the torch. Chinese volleyball player Jinfang Sun gave the Olympic Flame to former olympic champion Li Ning.

THAT GUY (Li Ning) APPEARED TO BE RUNNING ON MID AIR!!!!!! But that can't be right, theoretically. If it was true, then modern science and vehicles wouldn't be so ancient anymore. But it's just an illusion...One that everyone wonders about...