By David Ferguson and Wang Ke

The Forest Park to the north of the Bird's Nest stadium is one of the early stars of the Beijing Olympics. Opened to the public this week for five days to allow visitors to preview the facility, the park has been greeted with a huge thumbs-up.

As big as the Summer Palace and the Yuanmingyuan combined, the park represents an investment of 7.7 billion yuan -- that's over 1 billion US dollars. In the future it's set to become one of Beijing's garden treasures.