Is it just us or did the 2008 Olympics go by too fast? We're sad that the closing ceremonies are on the very near horizon. In fact, the only thing that's keeping our chins up is the chance to see David Beckham carrying the torch for London 2012.
And this little bit of news is helping our post-Olympic depression : The kick-ass Bird's Nest Stadium will be adding hotel rooms soon, reports USA Today. The stadium will also host at least 60 soccer matches a year and add VIP Skyboxes, meaning that it will be possible to watch an event here and sleep here too.
Names will be floated around soon for the stadium but we think Bird's Nest Hotel is just fine.
Michael Phelps keeps on swimming in Beijing but his latest race wasn't for gold. It was for something even better.
Phelps jumped into the pool at the Hilton Beijing on Tuesday to swim 6,250th and final lap of the "Hilton Swim to Beijing Relay." The relay is a multi-city charitable event contributing $100,000 to the USA Swimming Foundation to fund swim education programs across the United States.
The race actually began back in November 2007 when Phelps kicked off the swim at the Hilton Universal City. It then went on to five other cities. So why 6,250 laps? Well that's the distance from LA to Beijing.
Hilton will be donating the money to swim education programs in the participating cities as well as $50,000 to the USA Swimming Foundation. We're pretty sure every kid in America is going to be asking for swimming lessons this year.
While it seems most of the ordinary and extraordinary visitors to Beijing are holing up at the Intercontinental, anyone with a ton of money will surely bypass all other hotels for the Pangu Plaza. That is, when it finally opens.
Shaped like a dragon -- and stretching the length of seven football fields -- is a colossal row of stone buildings that boast a high-rise office tower, shopping mall, seven-star hotel and what the developer insists is the world's first traditional Chinese "courtyard in the sky."
According to the website, the hotel has 270 suites that are "especially designed for top-ranking officials in the world, leaders from all fields and top riches in the world." Translation: You gotta be very important to stay here.
Indeed, dinner in the Japanese restaurant inside starts at $600 a night and the cost of the presidential suite is up to $30,000 per night. God, we'd hate to hear what the standard suite rates are like.
And you will probably get your money's worth if you stay here. All rooms will have killer views of the Olympic stadiums like the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube. Plus you will be able to do some world-leader spotting too.
It's just a shame the hotel couldn't open in time for the Games. Word is it will open in a few weeks.
It seems that watching stacked Olympians win medals all over the place in Beijing makes us kinda hungry. We're pretty fixated on the hotel dining scene over in Beijing (hey, man, we don't have any world records to break), so we were thrilled when Matt and Meredith were feelin' what we were feelin' when they headed to China.
Last week, the Today Showfeatured a segment on the best Peking Duck in the world -- which just so happens to (arguably) be served at Grand Hyatt Beijing's restaurant, Made in China (teehee!)
The restaurant's manager took the Today Show through the whole Peking Duck dining, uh, "process," and they seemed to love it. You can check out the whole segment here -- and we really hope the Grand Hyatt staffers don't actually stand over your shoulder while you're dining and yell "1, 2, 3 EAT!" like they do here.
We know you've read this in 400 different places but: Michael Phelps eats 12,000 calories a day. This has been mystifying people all over the world this week, giving folks a nice little piece of commentary to add to watercooler recaps of the Olympics.
UK journalist Will Pavia decided to try out the Michael Phelps face-stuff-fest while over in Beijing covering the Olympics.
He took on the challenge at the InterContinental Beijing, and while we're certain there are more than a few places to score yourself 12,000 calories worth of food in the city, we now know for sure that the staff won't gawk at you or act like your multiple sandwiches and pounds of pasta are a big deal at all because they've already seen it.
Ever wonder what all those journalists are doing over in Beijing while they're covering the Olympics? No? Well, we did. And it turns out: they're all chillin' at the InterContinental Hotel, which is attached to the Olympic Main Press Center.
Our hub is the Main Press Center, which is effectively its own city. It has a bank, post office, general store, merchandise store, barber shop, cafeteria, transportation desk, exercise room, lockers, showers and library.
It is attached to the Intercontinental Hotel, and an easy path to the venues is through the pristine lobby.
So, like, every journalist covering the Olympics is just walking through the lobby of the hotel? Surely with those long hours covering even the boring stuff like trap shooting or badminton, all those reporters are in sunshine-y moods. Party time at the Intercontinental.
We love blindly stumbling upon a random hotel mention in article about, say, "Students in Beijing hungry for a taste of home," because more often than not, it alerts us to a place we never heard of before. In this case, it's the Spring Garden Hotel in Beijing.
This eight-room hotel near Tiananmen Square doesn't have a web site (at least not one that we can find anyway), meaning you'll have to book through a third-party site. The absence of a web site also is indicative of how quaint the property is, a word that comes up a lot in guest reviews on TripAdvisor.
On Monday we were sad to hear that the hip Hotel G in Beijing had been shut down by the Chinese government due to a Free Tibet protest that has taken place in one of the guest rooms, much to the dismay of the hotel staff.
The closing had been reported by a journalist from New Zealand who had taken part in the protest.
However, today the hotel has sent us a statement about the hotel's closing saying it was not done by the government at all. Instead, the hotel has had some "technical difficulties" in its soft-opening and decided not to take anymore guests during the Olympics.
An official opening date for Hotel G as not been announced so until then, the hotel remains closed.
Read the full letter from the hotel's rep after the jump.
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by juliana
On Monday we were sad to hear that the hip 
