Unlike a lot of places we’ve gone on this trip, Beijing is a very relevant place. Relevant in the sense that what goes on in Beijing is more likely to affect us as Americans than any other Asian city. The political and economic relationships between China and the US aren’t always amicable, but they are more important than “our†relationship with all but a handful of nations. I won’t get into all that right now though. The only reason I bring up relevance is that we visited the new Olympic Park today. Truthfully, I’m kind of sick of the Olympics already, because that’s all we’ve heard about for the past month and a half. From road-closings and stepped up security for the torch, to the countless articles and “news†clips that take up space in English newspapers and time on the one English channel in the country, to the official and unofficial Olympic stores that setup everywhere from inside department stores to inside public parks, to the 2008 Olympic logo and mascots on everything (and I mean everything- manhole covers, in public toilets, on nearly every company’s uniforms from grocery stores to restaurants, on my soft drink cans and beer bottles, on buildings, on plastic bags, on everything!), the country totally focused on this summer’s Games. Everything is about the Olympics. Chinese life revolves around the Olympics and nowhere is this more true than Beijing. It only seemed appropriate to visit Olympic Park.
the “Bird’s Nest”
the “Water Cube”
With the Olympics beginning in a mere four weeks, of course the 3 new subway lines aren’t yet finished. Joylani lamented the Chinese government could built a railway deemed impossible by European train engineers to Tibet (and months ahead of time), but are months behind completing their capitol’s subway lines. We did take the subway, but then had to walk quite a ways to the park. It wasn’t hard to find though, as we just followed the throngs of camera-toting Chinese. The park was fenced off, but hundreds of tourists were walking around and snapping photos. Mainly, I had just wanted to Bird’s Nest Stadium, since its looks really cool on TV. Initially, I was disappointed, as it wasn’t too impressive up close. But was we walked further away and its unique shape took form, I decided it was worth seeing. But for all you readers who are home, seeing it TV is probably good enough. The Water Cube wasn’t too impressive in person, not that seeing it TV ever impressed me either. Nonetheless, it was cool to see the place and sights, if not just because in a month we’ll be seeing it on TV along with the rest of the world.