In its ecstatic pre-Olympic frenzy, China dropped more than USD 40 billion to remake Beijing, constructing 15 venues and renovating (or redecorating) 14 others. Faster than you can say “280 billion renminbi,” many of those structures came tumbling down (baseball diamonds at Wukesong), went reverting back (the triathlon venue at Ming Tomb Reservoir), were remodeled (Olympic Sports Center Stadium) or re-imagined (Water Cube). Here are the venues that are still open to the public.

For those who want to relive Olympic memories or just visualize how it all went down, these monumental structures hold a special ability to awe, surprise or excite. That, after all, is the least that USD 40,000,000,000 can buy.

A year ago, they won glory for China. So what are these gold medalists doing now?

何雯娜 He Wenna, 20 – Trampoline
Women’s Trampoline

This bouncy star has been inundated with sponsorship offers because of her gold medal and, more importantly, her looks. She has shied away from the entertainment business but she is said to have earned RMB 20 million from endorsements in 2008. Currently training for next year’s Asian Games in Guangzhou, her next goal is to marry a “talented gentleman” by 21 and have a baby as soon as possible. She added that she wants to “leave the kid to her parents to look after so she can go out to have fun.”

Chinese Olympic diving star, Guo Jingjing, and her national teammates have spent their free time modelling. According to leaked photos they have been used to advertise goods for an as yet unnamed electronics company. The star of the Beijing Olympics is a world-class diver but we'll let you decide where on the podium she ranks for making you want to buy electrical goods.

More diving news, and there's no such thing as enough diving news, regards Fu Mingxia. The leaping legend is "suspected to be pregnant" for the fourth time following the release of papparrazzi shots from Hong Kong. Fu already has three children so a fourth will match her haul of Olympic golds.

According to the Beijing Times, Nike has agreed a deal which will see the sportswear giants plough USD 15 million into the Chinese Super League for the 2009 season. Twelve league teams will each get USD 732, 000 in equipment and a USD 220, 000 in cash. The remainder goes to the league. A 15% increase per year will eventually supply apparel to all 16 teams and would lead to a USD 30 million investment for the 2018 season. Holy cash cow!

The biggest story of the week regards everyone’s favorite football club, our very own Bejing Guo'an. Not content with appearing in the match that led to Wuhan Guanggu quitting the league entirely, or with inflaming Shangai Shenhua fans so much that they torched a Guoan mascot, last week Beijing’s finest excelled even themselves. How? By getting involved in what has variously been described as a “brawl” and “handbag waving” the majority deciding that the fracas was toward the tote-carrying end of the violence spectrum. That’s right, a wee bit of pushing and shoving with Tianjin Teda was all it took for domestic television’s powers-that-be to decide that there will be no more Chinese Super League broadcasts.

Remember those smiley faces and the controversial footprint fireworks that appeared as part of Cai Guoqiang's impressive pyrotechnic display at the opening of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games? Well, this Spring Festival Beijing residents will have the chance to let off a few of their own. According to reports in today's Beijing News, not only will pyromaniacs across the city be able to let off Smiley Faces and Footprints to their hearts content, but they'll also be able to set off all the car alarms in the xiaoqu with the Blossoming Flower. Kids on the other hand are encouraged to play with a Kungfu Panda-inspired rocket. The fireworks will be available at 200 outlets around town in the lead-up to Spring Festival. Though those sold as part of the Bird’s Nest series will not as big as the ones used in the opening ceremony - they've been scaled down for use by individuals.

The Water Cube gets it's first post Olympic scrub down.

Links and Sources
The Star Daily： 奥林匹克公园要建成5A级景点

As part of our ongoing series of blogs looking at the future of Beijing's Olympic venues (we took a look at what was going on over at the Water Cube last week) we now turn to the goings on over at the Bird's Nest.

After about a week spent recovering from the onslaught of tourists that packed the venue over the National Day holiday, the Bird’s Nest opened to the ticket-buying public again in mid-Oct. This time things were a little easier as the Olympic Subway line and the surrounding Olympic Park area had now become public space and no tickets or special passes were required to enter the area, security had also been relaxed. Tickets can now be bought at the gate or at the north gate of the Workers’ Stadium for RMB 50. As with tickets to the Water Cube there is a hot trade in scalped tickets and people are paying up to twice the official price of the tickets.

The speed with which the city has transformed some of the better-known stadiums into multi-purpose venues open to the ticket-buying public and often also available for hire, has been impressive. Indeed, their ability to draw on the status of the National Stadium (Bird’s Nest), National Aquatics Center (Water Cube), the National Indoor Stadium (the other one) and the Olympic Green area that connects the three, and mold them into a money-earning tourist site over the recent October holidays should offer lessons to future Olympic cities. This year’s Golden Week holidays saw the number of tourists visiting Beijing jump by more than 30% and the Olympic venues were the star attractions. Over the seven-day holiday, the Olympic center received 2.42 million visitors, which accounted for over .25% of the total number of visits to all of Beijing’s 21 most popular tourist sites Numbers peaked on Oct 2 when 527,000 people visited the Olympic Center. The Forbidden City only received 625,000 visitors over the whole seven-day period. But after this final flurry of Olympic-inspired attention from the public, what does the medium to long-term future of the Olympic venues look like?

Olympic sporting venues located inside the National Olympic Sports Center, just south of the Bird's Nest, are now open to the public - and we're not just talking about tourists poking their noses around. According to a report in Sunday's Beijing News, as part of a plan to put the Olympic venues to good use, the National Olympics Sports Center Stadium, National Olympics Sports Center Gymnasium, the Yingdong Natatorium of National Olympic Sports Center, National Olympic Sports Center Hockey Pitch, National Olympic Sports Center Comprehensive Training Gymnasium, National Olympic Sports Center Handball Training Gymnasium and National Olympic Sports Center Football Training Pitch are now all available for hire. The National Olympics Sports Center is not a new venue, but it under went renovation from 2005 to 2007 in preparation to host the Olympic Handball, Water Polo and Modern Pentathlon events.