Bengali in Beijing Part 3

Images from the Opening Ceremony, and what an Opening Ceremony it was! It will take the rest of the world years to even think of matching up to what Beijing gave us on the 8th of August, 2008 - starting at 8.00pm. Interesting legends around these parts as far as the Number 8 is concerned. Everyone wants the number on their car number plates, in the addresses of their houses...essentially, the sound of the word 'eight', when spoken in Mandarin, sounds like the word 'prosperity' in Mandarin. And like the west considers 'seven' as the lucky number, and India considers anything Ekkkta Kkkkapoor puts down as lucky, so is eight for the Chinese.
Pictures are put up in random order...

Now, if you saw it on TV, you got pretty much the same view as me. I wasn't allowed in, see. Got to see only a bit of it, but then, I went one better than the rest of you because I could still see the entire thing on a giant screen and there were zillions of Chinese locals watching it at the same place. Which did provide a fairly good atmosphere and there were all the fireworks lighting up the sky. So not bad on the whole. No reason to envy me much - just a bit.

Pics courtesy: Samip Rajguru of Aaj Tak - he was the only one of us to have a pass for the Opening Ceremony.