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To prepare for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, famous Beijing sites that are inscribed to be World Cultural Heritages are undergoing maintenance work, including areas in Beihai Park, the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City, the Long Corridor and Buddhist Incense Tower at the Summer Palace, Echo Wall in the Temple of Heaven Park, the Imperial Tombs of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Beijing Man Site in Zhoukoudian, and part of the Great Wall in the outskirts of Beijing.
Sources from the Beijing Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage say that to better serve Beijing's 2008 Olympic Games, the city has invested about 0.3 billion yuan in maintenance work on its Cultural Heritage spots.
Maintenance work on Qiongdao Island in Beihai Park began in July, 2005. After more than a year of reconstruction, the work is set to finish soon. And now, painting work, especially on the gilding, is underway in many related areas of Beihai Park, aiming to refresh the whole park in the near future.
The repair work on the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City is now beginning. The whole process is expected to take two years.
Since its revamping work began, the Buddhist Incense Tower at the Summer Palace has been closed to tourists. Maintenance work in the Summer Palace is scheduled to be over by this National Day holidays in early October.
At Tiantan, or the Temple of Heaven Park, renovation work on the Hall of Prayers for Good Harvest was finished this April. Now, the famous Echo Wall has been closed since May 25th for refurbishment.
The maintenance work on the Great Wall, the Imperial Tombs of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and the Beijing Man Site in Zhoukoudian are all intensely underway. All the sites will be ready before the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
During this maintenance period, ticket prices will remain the same for these cultural heritage sites of Beijing.
(People's Daily August 15, 2006)
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