Beijing is the capital of China, and is its second largest city (after Shanghai) with an urban population of over 12 million, over 17 million including the "suburbs". China actually has 50 cities with urban populations greater than 1 million (many with significantly more than that).
It seems like half of the poeple here must work for BOCOG (Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games) based on the number of volunteers in white and blue shirts I see, and the other half must be police or in the military. The military presence is everywhere, but for the most part, they appear to be unarmed.
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Beijing is located in northern China, and sits at about the same latitude as Toronto, but it does not enjoy the moderating effects of a large body of water like Lake Ontario. They have long, hot, summers, and long, cold, winters, with very short spring and fall periods. It can go from 35C to -5C in the span of a few weeks.
The temperature this week has been in the high 80's, with humidity to match, so that it feels much hotter. There is no breeze, and the air hangs thick and visibility is poor. Large dragonflies hover all over the place. I have seen blue sky and sun only once so far.
This is really the last densely populated area between here and the Arctic. Going north from Beijing, there are some mountain ranges, and some plains, then Mongolia, Siberia, and the North Pole.
China, despite being the 3rd largest country in the world (after Russia and Canada), has only one time zone, so here, on the eastern side, the sun rises at 5:20am and sets at 7:20pm.
The city is much greener than I expected, especially around the Oympic venues. There are literally millions of trees (28 million planted in the last two years to try to help with pollution). The trees and flowers looks very similar to what you would find in Canada (a mix of conifers and deciduous).
The highways are lined with flower boxes, and fluourescent lights along the guard rails. The roads appear nearly deserted, except for Olympic traffic, and I have not seen the body crushing masses of people that I had expected, even as I walked around downtown near Tiananmen Square.
Most of the (few) vehicles I have seen are Volkswagon or Hyundai (very popular as a Taxi), although there have been a few BMW's and Mercedes, and I have seen one Toyota Camry, and one Chrysler Sebring. As the Chinese economy grows, and more people can afford cars, there is a growing potential for catastrophic environmental impact.
The city is spotless, and there is no litter anywhere. An army of people with brooms is constantly sweeping and cleaning the streets. Are these amoung the 500 million who live here on less than $2 a day? Somehow, I doubt that anyone within the city limits could do that, although many things are very inexpensive. A 10 minute taxi ride to the subway from the Forbidden City cost only 10 Yuan (about $1.60), how can they be making any money on that given the price of gas these days?
I had a good 10 hour sleep from about 1pm to 11pm on Saturday (after a 19 hour shift on Friday/Saturday), so am feeling much refreshed, although my cold is hanging on. It may take me another day with a good sleep before I can try venturing out after work (sometime between noon and 5pm).
On Friday morning, I thought I had visited Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. As it turns out, what I thought was Tiananmen Square was actually the outer courtyard of the Forbidden City (it was huge, but not as large as I had thought it might be). Tiananmen square is actually across the street from the gate I used to enter the Forbidden City, and it really is huge, so large that there are no deliniations visible to let you know that it is one place. I will have to visit it again.
I have some great pictures from the Forbidden City, but taking time to take good pictures meant that I couldn't really join a tour, so I hope to visit it again too, and learn more about the history there. I actually spent three hours walking around and taking pictures (until my camera battery died), and saw only a fraction of what there is to see there.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Friday, August 8, 2008
Opening Ceremonies
OMG! (Sorry kids, I know I am too old and uncool to talk in text, but really, OMG!) That was probably the most spectacular Opening Ceremonies I have ever seen (and as I remember, Athens was also amazing).
Here are a few shots to whet your appetite (courtesy of my COMMs buddy Tony, who was inside the stadium - he ALWAYS manages to get inside the stadium).
Here's a shot of Team Canada entering the stadium:
And here's a short video clip I shot off the HD TV monitor in COMMs:
If you are tempted to just turn it off after the creative/cultural portion ends and the (long and boring) parade of athletes begins, DON'T! At the very least, try to record it so you can see how the torch gets lit (very cool!), and then watch the fireworks display at the finale.
The fireworks go on long after the ceremony ends, and were also going off all over the city. There were reports here that the blasts were so loud that some windows were shattered at hotels near the Olympic Green.
Hope it lived up to the hype!
Here are a few shots to whet your appetite (courtesy of my COMMs buddy Tony, who was inside the stadium - he ALWAYS manages to get inside the stadium).
Here's a shot of Team Canada entering the stadium:
And here's a short video clip I shot off the HD TV monitor in COMMs:
If you are tempted to just turn it off after the creative/cultural portion ends and the (long and boring) parade of athletes begins, DON'T! At the very least, try to record it so you can see how the torch gets lit (very cool!), and then watch the fireworks display at the finale.
The fireworks go on long after the ceremony ends, and were also going off all over the city. There were reports here that the blasts were so loud that some windows were shattered at hotels near the Olympic Green.
Hope it lived up to the hype!
Here We Go!
The Opening Ceremonies are just underway! The last few days have been hectic getting everything ready. Lots of venue faxing (facilities checking), and even tonight we've been diasgnosing an RF problem between the director of the show and some remote cameras (all is now well).
I think you are in for a treat. The Opening Ceremonies in Athen's cost $28 million to produce, and tonight's ceremonies are rumoured to have cost close to $300 million. Today's date: 08-08-08 is no accident, the number 8 is considered to be lucky in Chinese culture. The show started at 8:00pm and opened with exactly 2008 drummers doing a countdown. The show will also use 30,000 fireworks shells. Wait to you see what they do with the floor of the stadium!
I am in the process of turning around my work hours from noon to midnight, to midnight to noon. I've never had to work nights before, so it should be interesting, not just from a time perspective, but how it will affect sleeping and eating patterns.
Last night I went to bed at 1am, then got up at 6am to go visit Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City (I'll show you in another post). I got back to the MV at noon and then slept till 4:30pm. I'm not actually due back in to work until midnight tonight, but I wanted to be here for opening ceremonies, and there is a transportation lock down from 6pm to 8pm, so I had to catch a 5pm bus.
I hope you watch and enjoy the Opening Ceremonies!
I think you are in for a treat. The Opening Ceremonies in Athen's cost $28 million to produce, and tonight's ceremonies are rumoured to have cost close to $300 million. Today's date: 08-08-08 is no accident, the number 8 is considered to be lucky in Chinese culture. The show started at 8:00pm and opened with exactly 2008 drummers doing a countdown. The show will also use 30,000 fireworks shells. Wait to you see what they do with the floor of the stadium!
I am in the process of turning around my work hours from noon to midnight, to midnight to noon. I've never had to work nights before, so it should be interesting, not just from a time perspective, but how it will affect sleeping and eating patterns.
Last night I went to bed at 1am, then got up at 6am to go visit Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City (I'll show you in another post). I got back to the MV at noon and then slept till 4:30pm. I'm not actually due back in to work until midnight tonight, but I wanted to be here for opening ceremonies, and there is a transportation lock down from 6pm to 8pm, so I had to catch a 5pm bus.
I hope you watch and enjoy the Opening Ceremonies!
Thursday, August 7, 2008
The Better Way?
There's not a lot of news to report yet, as the Opening Ceremonies aren't until tomorrow, and I haven't been able to venture out anywhere interesting yet. I am fighting the time-change, and some sniffles that hopefully won't turn into anything worse. (Bird flu, anyone? Don't worry, I'm sure it is just allergies or the smog)
This morning, I had hoped to get up early and visit either the Summer Palace or Tiananmen Square, but when I woke at 6:00am, the skies were grey and the smog was thick. Visibility was terrible and would have made for really bad photographs, so I went back to bed and slept to 10:30, hoping to try and fight off this cold.
I still wanted to do something different today, so I decided to skip the Media Shuttle Bus and take the Beijing Subway to the IBC. This actually involves eight stops, on three separate subway lines, and took me about an hour, but is was worth it to be able to familiarize myself with the system, and admission is free for Accreditation holders like myself.
There is a subway line (actually an elevated train) that runs through the Media Village, but the nearest stop is about a 500m walk from my building. In the image above, I start at Beiyuanlu North on Line 5, come south to Line 10, then west to Line 8, and north to the Olympic Green.
As you can see, the stations look brand new, and are extremely clean, and well decorated.
That's actually a glass wall that separates the platform from the track, with sliding doors, so that you can't accidentally fall onto the track. The subway line map is displayed above the doors, with station names in English, and each of the transfer points to other lines are also indicated with arrows.
I did not get a seat on the first two lines, but the third line up into the Olympic Green was nearly empty. Now you can really see how clean it is. The TTC is pretty good in Toronto, but the New Yorkers here are in absolute awe of the cleanliness.
While the subway ride was easy and convenient, walking outdoors is a real chore. There is absolutely no breeze, and it is hot and humid. It feels like walking through soup. I only had to walk about 1km outside, but the sweat was dripping off my forehead before I got into the IBC (which is about 30 degrees cooler than outside, not helping with my cold).
Olympic Footnote:
Even though the Games haven't officially started yet, Canada has already started the competition with a 2-1 win over Argentina in Women's Soccer.
This morning, I had hoped to get up early and visit either the Summer Palace or Tiananmen Square, but when I woke at 6:00am, the skies were grey and the smog was thick. Visibility was terrible and would have made for really bad photographs, so I went back to bed and slept to 10:30, hoping to try and fight off this cold.
I still wanted to do something different today, so I decided to skip the Media Shuttle Bus and take the Beijing Subway to the IBC. This actually involves eight stops, on three separate subway lines, and took me about an hour, but is was worth it to be able to familiarize myself with the system, and admission is free for Accreditation holders like myself.
There is a subway line (actually an elevated train) that runs through the Media Village, but the nearest stop is about a 500m walk from my building. In the image above, I start at Beiyuanlu North on Line 5, come south to Line 10, then west to Line 8, and north to the Olympic Green.
As you can see, the stations look brand new, and are extremely clean, and well decorated.
That's actually a glass wall that separates the platform from the track, with sliding doors, so that you can't accidentally fall onto the track. The subway line map is displayed above the doors, with station names in English, and each of the transfer points to other lines are also indicated with arrows.
I did not get a seat on the first two lines, but the third line up into the Olympic Green was nearly empty. Now you can really see how clean it is. The TTC is pretty good in Toronto, but the New Yorkers here are in absolute awe of the cleanliness.
While the subway ride was easy and convenient, walking outdoors is a real chore. There is absolutely no breeze, and it is hot and humid. It feels like walking through soup. I only had to walk about 1km outside, but the sweat was dripping off my forehead before I got into the IBC (which is about 30 degrees cooler than outside, not helping with my cold).
Olympic Footnote:
Even though the Games haven't officially started yet, Canada has already started the competition with a 2-1 win over Argentina in Women's Soccer.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Happy Birthday!
Today is Connor and Caitie's birthday!
These pictures are from 4 years ago, so I know the kids will hate them, but everybody deserves a little humiliation on their birthday!
Connor is 15, and Caitie is 13, or, as they would mark it, Connor is one year from getting his driver's license (a frigthening thought), and Caitie is finally a teenager (maybe even more frightening).
I miss you both , and am sorry I'm not there for your birthday (for the first time ever). Hope you have a great day! Love you both, Dad.
These pictures are from 4 years ago, so I know the kids will hate them, but everybody deserves a little humiliation on their birthday!
Connor is 15, and Caitie is 13, or, as they would mark it, Connor is one year from getting his driver's license (a frigthening thought), and Caitie is finally a teenager (maybe even more frightening).
I miss you both , and am sorry I'm not there for your birthday (for the first time ever). Hope you have a great day! Love you both, Dad.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
The Olympic Green - Part 1
It was actually sunny this afternoon, so I slipped out of the IBC at about 6pm for a quick walk about the Olympic Green. There are a number of truly amazing venues that the Chinese have built for these Games, and the two most prominent are right here in the Olympic Green.
The one you have probably already seen a lot of on TV is the "Bird's Nest" (technically called the "National Stadium"). It is a huge woven steel structure that seats 90,000 and that will be the home to the Opening and Closing ceremonies, as well as the Track and Field competitions.
The other amazing structure is the "Aquatic Cube" (or the "National Aquatic Centre") which looks like a giant bubble wrapped building. This will, naturally, host the swimming competitions. The other cool part about this building is that it can be lit up in different colors at night.
Also nearby is the "National Indoor Stadium" (there is no nifty nickname for this building, which is too bad, really, because the official names are rather boring). This building will house the gymnastics competitions.
These are all within a short walk of the International Broadcast Centre where I work (well, a relatively short walk, given the huge size of these buildings). The IBC is the biggest of the lot, as you can see here:
There is a lot more to see and show you in the Olympic Green, so I will definitely be coming back to take more pictures. While I was out walking today, there were hundreds of people outside the Bird's Nest who were participating in the full dress rehersal for the Opening Ceremonies.
I am watching the rehersal right now in HD, and it is visually stunning, so you will NOT want to miss it (at least until they start the parade of athletes, which gets a little tedious after a while). The nice part of watching the rehersal is that there is no commentary, so the meanings of the visual themes are left to your imagination, and you also don't have to listen to often useless patter. The unfortunate part is that the vidoe has "NOT FOR BROADCAST" overlayed across the bottom third of the screen.
I was going to play spoiler and tell you what's happening, but there is no way I can do justice to the visual spectacle with a text description, so you'll just have to watch it yourself!
The one you have probably already seen a lot of on TV is the "Bird's Nest" (technically called the "National Stadium"). It is a huge woven steel structure that seats 90,000 and that will be the home to the Opening and Closing ceremonies, as well as the Track and Field competitions.
The other amazing structure is the "Aquatic Cube" (or the "National Aquatic Centre") which looks like a giant bubble wrapped building. This will, naturally, host the swimming competitions. The other cool part about this building is that it can be lit up in different colors at night.
Also nearby is the "National Indoor Stadium" (there is no nifty nickname for this building, which is too bad, really, because the official names are rather boring). This building will house the gymnastics competitions.
These are all within a short walk of the International Broadcast Centre where I work (well, a relatively short walk, given the huge size of these buildings). The IBC is the biggest of the lot, as you can see here:
There is a lot more to see and show you in the Olympic Green, so I will definitely be coming back to take more pictures. While I was out walking today, there were hundreds of people outside the Bird's Nest who were participating in the full dress rehersal for the Opening Ceremonies.
I am watching the rehersal right now in HD, and it is visually stunning, so you will NOT want to miss it (at least until they start the parade of athletes, which gets a little tedious after a while). The nice part of watching the rehersal is that there is no commentary, so the meanings of the visual themes are left to your imagination, and you also don't have to listen to often useless patter. The unfortunate part is that the vidoe has "NOT FOR BROADCAST" overlayed across the bottom third of the screen.
I was going to play spoiler and tell you what's happening, but there is no way I can do justice to the visual spectacle with a text description, so you'll just have to watch it yourself!
Monday, August 4, 2008
The Media Village
Welcome to the Media Village!
After arriving last night about 6:30pm local time, I unpacked and got settled, wrote my blog entry, showered, and then went to bed at 11:30pm (local time), but even though I was extremely tired, I woke up at 2:30am, and then 4:30am, before giving up and rising at 5:30am and going in to work for 7:30am. I am told it will take a couple of days to adjust (just in time for me to then have to switch over to my work hours, which look like they will be midnight to noon). This is actually a pretty good schedule, as I will have daylight hours from noon to about 4 or 5pm to do tourist type things, and then try to sleep from 5pm to 11pm before going back to work.
Anyway, since I was up early this morning, I took a little walk around the Media Village. Let me take you on a quick tour:
There are a few Media Villages (MV) in use for the games. Mine is called the "North Star Media Village" (by NBC), but all the signs here say "Green Homeland Media Village". It will house over 6000 media representatives from around the world in a number of large condo-like buildings.
There are shuttle buses that loop through the village, but the grounds are clean and quite pretty, with lots of vegetation, flowers and walkways.
The MV is located in what looks to be a nice "upper-middle class" neighbourhood. We are separated from a large community of nice looking "townhouses" by a flimsy looking chain link fence, and a "moat".
The "moat" isn't very deep, OK, I think it's actually a stream, but we are "protected" from the locals next door by this guy:
He stands there, unmoving, all day, staring into the neighbouring community daring somebody to try and cross the fence.
This is my building, C2, and I am on the 18th floor (of 32). There are about 16 apartments on each floor, each housing 1 or 2 people. Buildings C2, C3, and C4 are reserved for NBC personnel, so taking some averages, I'd guess that there are about 2300 NBC people just in this MV.
The building is not air conditioned, but each bedroom is (thankfully). My apartment is a "3 bedroom", with 2 bathrooms, and a common area. Here is the common area, just inside the apartment door:
I (supposedly) share the apartment with a roommate who is already here, but whom I have yet to see or hear. His bedroom has an ensuite, while my bathroom is across the hall from my bedroom (so we each have our own bathroom). The bathroom is nice, clean, and a lot larger than in Athens.
My bedroom is also quite nice, and reasonably spacious, with an armoire, twin bed, night table, desk, chair, and a TV and stand.
From my window, I have a view overlooking the stream, fence, and neighbouring community. You can see that things are pretty smoggy, even at 7:00am.
The Media Village provides all kinds of services to its guests, including a Post Office, Medical Services, a Fitness Centre, a Pool, 7 Restaurants/Bars (and free breakfasat), Laundry Facilities, a Newsstand, and a General Store. There is also wireless Internet access, but it doesn't reach my room, and service is spotty throughout the village.
Overall, this is one of the nicest Media Villages I have stayed at (certainly with more services available than ever before).
After arriving last night about 6:30pm local time, I unpacked and got settled, wrote my blog entry, showered, and then went to bed at 11:30pm (local time), but even though I was extremely tired, I woke up at 2:30am, and then 4:30am, before giving up and rising at 5:30am and going in to work for 7:30am. I am told it will take a couple of days to adjust (just in time for me to then have to switch over to my work hours, which look like they will be midnight to noon). This is actually a pretty good schedule, as I will have daylight hours from noon to about 4 or 5pm to do tourist type things, and then try to sleep from 5pm to 11pm before going back to work.
Anyway, since I was up early this morning, I took a little walk around the Media Village. Let me take you on a quick tour:
There are a few Media Villages (MV) in use for the games. Mine is called the "North Star Media Village" (by NBC), but all the signs here say "Green Homeland Media Village". It will house over 6000 media representatives from around the world in a number of large condo-like buildings.
There are shuttle buses that loop through the village, but the grounds are clean and quite pretty, with lots of vegetation, flowers and walkways.
The MV is located in what looks to be a nice "upper-middle class" neighbourhood. We are separated from a large community of nice looking "townhouses" by a flimsy looking chain link fence, and a "moat".
The "moat" isn't very deep, OK, I think it's actually a stream, but we are "protected" from the locals next door by this guy:
He stands there, unmoving, all day, staring into the neighbouring community daring somebody to try and cross the fence.
This is my building, C2, and I am on the 18th floor (of 32). There are about 16 apartments on each floor, each housing 1 or 2 people. Buildings C2, C3, and C4 are reserved for NBC personnel, so taking some averages, I'd guess that there are about 2300 NBC people just in this MV.
The building is not air conditioned, but each bedroom is (thankfully). My apartment is a "3 bedroom", with 2 bathrooms, and a common area. Here is the common area, just inside the apartment door:
I (supposedly) share the apartment with a roommate who is already here, but whom I have yet to see or hear. His bedroom has an ensuite, while my bathroom is across the hall from my bedroom (so we each have our own bathroom). The bathroom is nice, clean, and a lot larger than in Athens.
My bedroom is also quite nice, and reasonably spacious, with an armoire, twin bed, night table, desk, chair, and a TV and stand.
From my window, I have a view overlooking the stream, fence, and neighbouring community. You can see that things are pretty smoggy, even at 7:00am.
The Media Village provides all kinds of services to its guests, including a Post Office, Medical Services, a Fitness Centre, a Pool, 7 Restaurants/Bars (and free breakfasat), Laundry Facilities, a Newsstand, and a General Store. There is also wireless Internet access, but it doesn't reach my room, and service is spotty throughout the village.
Overall, this is one of the nicest Media Villages I have stayed at (certainly with more services available than ever before).
Sunday, August 3, 2008
All the way to China!
I made it! Tired, stinky, and sweaty, but I made it! But it almost didn't start out so well. I arrived at Pearson before 8:00am for a 10:10 flight, but by the time I cleared customs and immigration, we were already boarding for Chicago at about 9:50. I'm glad my bags made it onto the plane.
There was a 3.5 hour layover in Chicago, but NBC had arranged access to the United Red Carpet Lounge (free drinks!), and also had setup an NBC lounge by walling off the entire C18 gate area (also free drinks, and food!).
I was on an NBC production charter, which was an old Boeing 747-400 (double decker). You could tell it was old because it still had CRT video displays (not LCD and no seatback displays), and the video was from tape not digital. It seemed like it took forever for the plane to actually lift-off as we sped down the runway, hitting 355km/h at wheels-up.
This particular charter was mostly filled with interns, who were exuberant and excited through the whole trip (did I mention that there were free drinks?). For those of you who were on the UW graduation skiing trip to Whistler, the flight was like that, except they didn't "run out of beer" after the first half hour.
The interns pay their own way (airfare and accommodation), and work for free, just to get experience and hopefully make some contacts within NBC, so I can't blame them for wanting to live-it-up a little (but I hope they learn to pace themselves, as this is going to be a long three weeks).
Given that I am twice as old as most of these interns, I'm wondering if I am turning into a jaded old guy, or if I am just trying to be nonchalant and play it cool about coming to China. The truth is, it is an exciting time, and their enthusiasm was infectious, so it was a good kick-off for me.
The flight itself was pretty neat, we flew over the North Pole on the Great Circle (so almost half the 6582 mile trip is just getting out of Canada)! We were chasing the Sun the whole way here, so there was never any darkness. I ended up with a whole row of three seats to myself, and managed to sleep for 3-4 hours (from the Beaufort sea through most of Siberia). When I woke up, I looked out the window and realized why no-one wants to visit Siberia:
As we made our approach into Beijing, we passed over part of the Great Wall, and I took some aerial photos, knowing that this might be as close as I get to seeing it:
There are some quite mountainous areas outside of Beijing, and then just miles and miles of farmland before you reach the city (I guess you need a lot of produce to feed 18 million people in one city).
When we touched down, things started to get surreal. The entire airport seemed deserted and we were greeted like Rock Stars by lines of clapping and cheering Olympic volunteers (who all had managed to learn how to say "Welcome to Beijing", and to smile and nod a lot). There were costumed Olympic mascots (like you'd see at Wonderland or Disneyworld) dancing and waving at us, and lots of people were taking our pictures.
The business end of getting our entry visa and accreditation validated, and then getting our luggage was extremely efficient (and why wouldn't it be, we were the only people in this giant airport, and there were dozens of people waiting on us).
The bus ride to the Media Village was another 45 minutes, and it was 96 degrees and extremely humid, so that the bus ride seemed longer and more uncomfortable than the plane trip did.
When we got in the buses (with luggage in separate trucks delivered straight to our rooms) and pulled out of the airport, we had what seemed like a police escort, who stopped traffic at several highway entrances to allow the bus convoy the right-of-way.
Seeing these single police officers standing alone in the middle of the highway holding up a huge line of vehicles so that we could pass was eerily similar to an image in my mind of a young man standing in a square in front of a long line of tanks.
Anyhow, I am now here in my Media Village room, hot, tired, and smelly. So, off to the shower and then to bed!
There was a 3.5 hour layover in Chicago, but NBC had arranged access to the United Red Carpet Lounge (free drinks!), and also had setup an NBC lounge by walling off the entire C18 gate area (also free drinks, and food!).
I was on an NBC production charter, which was an old Boeing 747-400 (double decker). You could tell it was old because it still had CRT video displays (not LCD and no seatback displays), and the video was from tape not digital. It seemed like it took forever for the plane to actually lift-off as we sped down the runway, hitting 355km/h at wheels-up.
This particular charter was mostly filled with interns, who were exuberant and excited through the whole trip (did I mention that there were free drinks?). For those of you who were on the UW graduation skiing trip to Whistler, the flight was like that, except they didn't "run out of beer" after the first half hour.
The interns pay their own way (airfare and accommodation), and work for free, just to get experience and hopefully make some contacts within NBC, so I can't blame them for wanting to live-it-up a little (but I hope they learn to pace themselves, as this is going to be a long three weeks).
Given that I am twice as old as most of these interns, I'm wondering if I am turning into a jaded old guy, or if I am just trying to be nonchalant and play it cool about coming to China. The truth is, it is an exciting time, and their enthusiasm was infectious, so it was a good kick-off for me.
The flight itself was pretty neat, we flew over the North Pole on the Great Circle (so almost half the 6582 mile trip is just getting out of Canada)! We were chasing the Sun the whole way here, so there was never any darkness. I ended up with a whole row of three seats to myself, and managed to sleep for 3-4 hours (from the Beaufort sea through most of Siberia). When I woke up, I looked out the window and realized why no-one wants to visit Siberia:
As we made our approach into Beijing, we passed over part of the Great Wall, and I took some aerial photos, knowing that this might be as close as I get to seeing it:
There are some quite mountainous areas outside of Beijing, and then just miles and miles of farmland before you reach the city (I guess you need a lot of produce to feed 18 million people in one city).
When we touched down, things started to get surreal. The entire airport seemed deserted and we were greeted like Rock Stars by lines of clapping and cheering Olympic volunteers (who all had managed to learn how to say "Welcome to Beijing", and to smile and nod a lot). There were costumed Olympic mascots (like you'd see at Wonderland or Disneyworld) dancing and waving at us, and lots of people were taking our pictures.
The business end of getting our entry visa and accreditation validated, and then getting our luggage was extremely efficient (and why wouldn't it be, we were the only people in this giant airport, and there were dozens of people waiting on us).
The bus ride to the Media Village was another 45 minutes, and it was 96 degrees and extremely humid, so that the bus ride seemed longer and more uncomfortable than the plane trip did.
When we got in the buses (with luggage in separate trucks delivered straight to our rooms) and pulled out of the airport, we had what seemed like a police escort, who stopped traffic at several highway entrances to allow the bus convoy the right-of-way.
Seeing these single police officers standing alone in the middle of the highway holding up a huge line of vehicles so that we could pass was eerily similar to an image in my mind of a young man standing in a square in front of a long line of tanks.
Anyhow, I am now here in my Media Village room, hot, tired, and smelly. So, off to the shower and then to bed!
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