Beijing's top tourism sites 'monumental(adj 1. 雄伟的; 巨大的; 不朽的 2. [用以加强语气]非常的, 极端的 a painting on a monumental scale巨幅画 monumental ignorance极端的无知 momentous重大的重要的 a momentous occasion; a momentous decision重大时刻,重要决定)'
BEIJING — You don't need a guide book to know four of this city's five "Must Sees"
of travel. Just get the boxed set of travel coffee mugs sold at most
Starbucks in Beijing. They're all there, the Forbidden City, the Temple
of Heaven, the Summer Palace and the Great Wall. The only major tourist
site that didn't make the cut([slang] 1. 达到标准 To meet or come up to a required standard Some
say if Pluto冥王星 were discovered today instead of 75 years ago, it
woundn't make the cut. (From this article about the potential 10th
planet of the solar system (9 is the current recognized number), Pluto,
the 9th and currently outmost planet was discredited(使不可信 败坏名誉) by the newly discovered planet further away from the Sun) 2. 未被删除或取消, 成功晋级(和miss the cut反义)
to survive an elimination. [源] from golf where a player must do equal
or better than a certain score, which is called “cut line”, to continue,
if not, called "miss the cut" 3. 在美国口语里是"打折"的意思) can't cut the mustard(芥末) (British, American & Australian, British) 符合条件要求, 行动起来以求符合期望或达到预定标准 if you can't cut the mustard, you cannot deal with problems or difficulties. If she can't cut the mustard, we'll have to find someone else to do the job.) was Tiananmen, perhaps for political reasons.
A
tour of the sites during the Olympics is its own kind of world travel,
with sightseers, athletes and coaches from every corner of the globe jostling(推挤, 拥挤) with Chinese families to get the perfect photo. They all say one thing: China is big and its tourist sites are monumental. Here's a quick rundown(n. 扼要报告 adj 衰弱的,破旧的):
Tiananmen: The original Gate of Heavenly Peace, or Tian An, was built in the 15th century. Mao Zedong declared the formation of
the People's Republic of China at this site in 1949, though it wasn't
until 1958 that he enlarged it to its current almost 100 acres size,
making it the world's largest city square. In the West, the square is
most famous for the government crackdown on democracy protesters in
1989. To tourists, it's often the first stop on a Beijing city tour,
with milling crowds trudging跋涉 across the vast square under a burning sun.
"We don't have anything this big in Spain," says Aurelio Garcia Abellan of La Mancha, Spain.
Forbidden
City: Next to Tiananmen is the Forbidden City, the heart of the ancient
capital. The enormous complex of palaces, apartments, ceremonial
grounds and pavilions covers 120 acres. Many of the dazzling painted patterns on the buildings have been redone for the Olympics, and the buildings, once somewhat run-down破败的, now look as sparkling as the day they were built.
Siamone
Martin, 31, of Providence, called it "gorgeous" and said it would take
"the National Mall(华盛顿的国家广场) and the Smithsonian all rolled in to one to get something of this caliber(口径, 器量才干)."
Temple of Heaven: This temple complex south of Tiananmen is one of the largest in China. It's where the emperor came on the winter solstice(冬至)
to offer sacrifices to the heavens. While the main temple is
astounding, to visitors and Beijing residents alike the vast, green
lawns and gardens of the temple grounds are hugely popular as a place of respite(1. 稍事休息 a brief respite from one's work工作后的稍事休息 2. 暂时延缓 respite a sentence缓期执行). The long, covered walkways and wide pathways are host to knots群 of people doing martial arts, playing musical instruments, doing Western jitterbugs, choral singing and the occasional card game.
Armin Hilpold of Bolzano, Italy, bought a Chinese version of a hacky sack(毽子 A trademark used for a footbag. This trademark often occurs in print hyphenated or in uppercase or lowercase as a name for the game of footbag.), which consisted of a metal plate with a rubber cover about the size of a silver dollar, and a two-inch cluster of feathers. Chinese grandmothers stood in a circle nearby kicking it neatly around the group with effortless behind-the-back taps.
"We just saw it and thought it would be a nice gift," Hilpold said, but he was having trouble keeping it in the air with the ease the Chinese showed.
Summer
Palace: This enormous collection of lakes, parkland, temples and
pavilions to the northwest of Tiananmen began in the 12th century as a cool escape避暑胜地 from the heat of Beijing's broiling酷热的 summers
for the Imperial family. The entrance looks a lot like the Forbidden
City, but a quick walk through the first series of halls brings visitors
to a large lake filled with families happily churning paddle boats.
The theme of the sheer size of China's tourists attractions continued. "Everything here that's beautiful is either really long or really high要么很长要么很高," says Nico Ursem, a builder in Amsterdam. "You must have strong legs to be a tourist here."
Great Wall: Built to keep the barbarians out, the Great Wall failed miserably at its assigned task. But today the barbarians flock to it,
with buses loading and unloading every five minutes. At Badaling, the
nearest portion to Beijing, Oscar Ramirez, a doctor with the Cuban
Olympic team, was worried that some of the less fit visitors he saw hiking up the steep wall might have heart attacks. "Is there a hospital nearby?" he wondered.
刘翔退出比赛Chinese track star Liu pulls out of 110-meter hurdles
BEIJING (AP) — Liu Xiang and the entire nation of China looked forward to this moment for years: The defending Olympic champion lining up to run the 110-meter hurdles at the Beijing Games. He didn't even get to race.
Liu pulled up
lame just steps into the first round of qualifying Monday, leaving the
Summer Games' host country without one of its biggest stars — and far and away(很大程度上, 无疑地, 肯定地) its biggest star in track and field.
He limped out of the block at the starting gun, took a few awkward steps, then pulled up when the second gun sounded to signal a false start. No one is disqualified by an initial false start, yet Liu tore the pieces of paper with his number off each leg撕掉每条腿上写着号码的纸 and immediately headed for a tunnel.
While the other entrants in his heat( in the heat of something 最激烈的时候while there is much activity and strong emotions. Sometimes in the heat of an election campaign a candidate makes a mistake. Usage notes: sometimes used in the form in the heat of the moment(在盛怒之下) while experiencing strong emotions: His remarks were made in the heat of the moment.) prepared for the restart, Liu took a slow walk along a concrete path leading away from the rust-colored track where he was supposed to thrill a nation. Instead, he sat against a wall alone, that smiling face that adorns so many advertising billboards now sullen(愠怒的, 沉沉不乐的, (天气等)阴沉的).
菲尔普斯微弱优势获得第7金并创造历史后的美国报导
两个标题如下:Phelps Wins Seventh Gold by a Hair(a hair's breadth(=close call, by a whisker[胡须, 髯 见后面]) 千钧一发 very small distance or amount. Enemy forces are within a hair's breadth of the city. We were a hair's breadth away from getting caught. (= we were almost caught) ). Phelps Wins 7th Gold With 0.01 to Spare.
BEIJING — After 3,200 meters and 16 races, Michael Phelps's pursuit of Mark Spitz came down to(归结为) a single stroke. With five meters to go in the 100-meter butterfly final Saturday morning, Phelps realized he had misjudged the finish.
He had two choices: glide to the wall, kicking like crazy, or take an extra, awkward half-stroke(再做半个动作). To his left, Milorad Cavic was having the race of his life. Phelps, who was seventh at the turn, had no room for error. Most swimmers would have impulsively chosen to glide, but Phelps proved by the slimmest of margins what sets him apart(使他与众不同). Following his instincts, he took an alligator-arm stroke and touched the wall. Cavic, a California-born Serb, hit the timing pad in full glide.
Both swimmers spun around转过身来 and stared at the video screen. In the moment it took the scoreboard记分板 to unscramble(整理, 使回复原状, 译出密码, 还原成能被看懂的形式) the results, the tension inside the National Aquatics Center was palpable可触知的, 明显的. Phelps was timed in 50.58, a personal best and an Olympic record. Cavic, a California-Berkeley graduate, was one-hundredth of a second behind. Phelps had caught Spitz by a whisker(by a whisker(=见前面by a hair, close call whisker胡须,髯) by a very small amount. Last time she raced against the Brazilian she won by a whisker. He missed the goal by a whisker. (come) within a whisker of something/doing something 差点就...if you come within a whisker of doing something, you almost do it or it almost happens to you. He came within a whisker of beating the world champion. Several times on his trek through the jungle he came within a whisker of death. Yesterday, the price of oil came within a whisker of its all-time high. ). It was his seventh gold medal, tying Spitz's record haul from the 1972 Munich Games and earning him a $1 million bonus from Speedo, one of his sponsors.
The race awakened echoes of the men's 100 butterfly final in 1988 when another Berkeley product, Matt Biondi, lost a late lead and the gold, by the same wafer-thin margin,
to Anthony Nesty of Suriname. Cavic, 24, described it as "the most
devastating loss you can have at the Olympics." Cavic will never be
confused with a shrinking violet(害羞或腼腆的人 She's no shrinking violet. (usually negative) I wouldn't exactly describe him as a shrinking violet. ). Before this week, his claim to fame(someone's calim to fame the reason why someone is famous. Chan's claim to fame is that he does his own stunts in his movies. Usage notes: sometimes used of places: The restaurant is Philadelphia's latest claim to fame.The town's main claim to fame is that the President was born here. ) was getting himself barred from the European championships for wearing a T-shirt on the medal stand that read, "Kosovo is Serbia."
On Friday, after posting the fastest time in the semifinals, a 50.92, Cavic said it would be good for the sport if Phelps was thwarted(挫败,阻挠, 横跨穿过 thwart the enemy's conspiracy挫败敌人的阴谋 be thwarted in one's plans计划遭到挫折) in his bid for eight gold medals. Phelps's coach, Bob Bowman, read Cavic's quote Saturday morning and debated whether to自我斗争 share the comment with Phelps.
He had a flashback to想起了
the Athens Games in 2004, when Phelps's margin of victory over Ian
Crocker had been four-hundredths of a second. This race also figured to
be tight, as only 35-hundredths of a second separated the top four
qualifiers. Bowman decided to play the quote card. "When Bob told me, I was like, O.K," Phelps said. "When people say things like that, it fires me up more than anything."
When will swimmers learn not to take pokes at Phelps? Before the 4x100 freestyle relay final on Monday, Fred Bousquet of France talked trash about the Americans. The United States team got the last word(笑到了最后 在争论中硬要说出最后一句话, 强辩到底 be the last word in sth/have the last/final word.), with Phelps setting an American record in his leadoff leg and Jason Lezak reeling in the Frenchman Alain Bernard in the final meter.
It boggled Phelps's mind(mind-boggling==The mind boggles(at sth). - 难以理解something that you say which means that a situation or subject is very difficult to understand or imagine. His latest book is a mixture of physics, astronomy and philosophy - all mind-boggling stuff. The mind boggles at the thought of what you could do with all that money. boggle抽搐,因害怕而躲闪 The mind now boggling at all the numbers on the table, both sides agreed to a recess of an hour” )
to think he had won back-to-back Olympic golds in the 100 butterfly by a
total margin of five-hundredths of a second. "I guess my two finishes
over the last four years have been pretty good," he said.
"It seems like every day I'm in a dream world," Phelps said. "Sometimes you have to pinch捏掐 yourself to see if it's real."
In
a joint interview on NBC, Spitz told Phelps, "What you did tonight was
epic," adding later, "I never thought for one moment you were out of that race(out of the race没有成功的可能)."
During
Phelps's news conference after the race, a reporter said to him:
"Obviously you are the king. I'm sure you're going to have eight medals.
What's your next dream?" The woman was speaking accented English, but
the 23-year-old Phelps looked as if something had been lost in
translation. He never counts his victories before they are won, not even
when his eighth gold is riding on Sunday's 4x100 medley relay, which
the Americans have never lost at a non-boycotted Olympics.
"It's not over yet," said Phelps, who will swim third in the relay, on the butterfly leg.
"I really think the Australian team looks great for the relay. It's
going to be a great race." Phelps loves the chase. If he passes Spitz,
he will not rest long. There is always another goal to go after.
其他关于第七金报导的句子摘抄:So much history can be decided by fractions of a second in swimming. But never in the history of the sport has so much been at stake with so little time as there was today in the 100-meter butterfly. "The timing system says it all说明了一切.
There hasn't really been an error with the timing system. I raced as
hard as I could and the scoreboard said I got my hand on the wall
first," Phelps said. Phelps had to whip off his goggles泳镜 to see the scoreboard after he touched the wall, and when he saw first place next to his name, the 23-year-old pumped his fist and let loose a primal yell. Cavic -- who grew up in Orange County, Calif., and has dual citizenship具有双重国籍 with the United States and Serbia because both his parents are Serbian -- seemed to be at peace with the result an hour after the race. He initially stormed out of the pool and refused to answer questions. Cavic probably didn't do himself any favors yesterday with some candid pre-race comments. "When I heard that Milorad said it would be good for swimming if I lost, it fired me up more than anything,"
Phelps said. Phelps' coach -- who trains race horses in his spare time
and plans to do it full time one day -- said, It's so hard because
fresh horses -- whether it's a sprinter短距离冲刺者 or a distance specialist长距离专家 -- are always lining up against you, dreaming of taking you down.
