Saturday, August 23, 2008

Greetings from Beijing

And unfortunately, no, I am not in the Chinese capital to attend the Olympic Games! Cousin Mark has to work and attend meetings.

It's been an interesting week here in Beijing, and I thought I'd share a few of my observations:
1) China is number 1 based on Gold medals. State Chinese TV shows China in first place, as compared to the US media's method of showing first place, which is total medal count. Ha.
2) I have never seen the air so clear here in Beijing. Taking half the cars off the freeways and shutting down industry really works.
3) You can't get anywhere near the Olympics venues without a ticket. Security is incredible. Bag screening and "the wand" at every hotel and subway entrance. It seems to me that the #1 priority of the Chinese has been that there should be no incident, and if the venues are not full, so be it.
4) The pandas in the Beijing zoo are so cute! The zoo is contained in a beautiful park with all the classic Chinese scenes, the wheeping willows draped over the water, etc. Very nice.

2 comments:

J.R. said...

Well if you are at the zoo, where it is all happening, then you must not just be working and attending meetings.

Cousin Mark said...

Saturday is a day off. But alas, no Olympics ticket!