Beijing and the whole China celebrates the 100-Day countdown to the Summer Olympic Games just before the May holidays. Some big manifestations were held around China with the main venue being Forbidden City and the Tian An Men square where for years already the main digital countdown display is located. I just happened to be passing by when the countdown display was showing exactly 100-Day left and I must say that the atmosphere in Tian An Men was so great and inspiring. Hundreds of locals with small Chinese and Olympic flags gathered to cheer and countdown. Youths with faces painted in Chinese flag were probably the most excited, but I wonder how many of them will actually be allowed to stay in Beijing during the Olympics, since the plan is to get them all out of the city during summer unless they are working or volunteering for Olympics.
And how ready is actually Beijing for the Olympics? Well, if you watch CCTV9 – it all looks bright and awesome. But frankly I was expecting too see more things done already. Yes, you no longer see people spitting in the subway, but it still looks like some places haven’t been cleaned for months. Even the new subway lines look dirty, that is probably why they haven’t changed all the trains to new ones and haven’t opened the tourniquets yet, keeping them wrapped in plastic instead. Air pollution and congested road traffic still remains one of the biggest concerns, although most of the taxi drivers will understand English now. The city of course has changed tremendously during the past years to the better and there are still 100 days left, which seems like enough time to get done all these final touches that counts.
And here is the countdown display as I seen it during the years, 1044 days left, 399 days left and 99 days left (well, almost a hundred):
