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Beijing, China

November 4, 2009

 

After visiting Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City and Imperial Gardens, I asked the poor guy who was stuck playing tour guide to me that afternoon if we could swing by the Olympic venues.  Of course, there is no 'swinging by' anywhere in Beijing and certainly not in the late afternoon rush hour.  The traffic is horrible as more and more of the city's residents are able to afford to buy their own cars. 

But he obliged and we drove a couple of miles north to the Olympic Green to see the National Stadium (birds nest), the Aquatic Center (water cube), and a huge plaza that must have been filled with throngs of people in the summer of 2008.

I love seeing things in person that have become familiar to me on TV.  Of course, they always are oriented differently than there were in my mind.  But it was nice to walk around this impressive plaza. 

"What was here before they built the Olympic center?"  I asked.

"There was a village, but the people living there wanted to move.  So it worked out very well," he quickly responded.

It's nice when things work out that way...