BJ Day 2

I have now been in Beijing for over 24 hours, and I still have yet to see a building that was built more than probably five years ago.  Actually, most of the places I've been are about 3 months old: today I went to the airport to pick up my family (hoooray!!!!), and then we toured around the Olympic venues some.  

Here are the highlights:

Terminal 3 of Beijing Capital Intl Airport.  This is probably the single most impressive infrastructure building I've ever been to.  You take an Airport Express subway train that goes right up to the front of it, then branches up and down for departures and arrivals.  Then you walk into this GIGANTIC hall, all open air and really beautiful and absolutely huge, where, in my case, you get a sandwich and read a guidebook while you wait for your family to arrive.

Walking up the axis of the city towards the Olympic green.  Note how HUGE this thing is, and also the large number of people.  Also check out what the kid is doing: besides flying a kite, he's riding on one of these two-wheeled skateboards that are really common here.  You get on it and balance some, and then move your feet back and forward to keep from falling and to propel yourself.  They look like a lot of fun, though I would guess it's a little tricky at first.

The Bird's Nest!  We didn't know that it had lights on the same theme.  Cool.

More Bird's Nest.  This gives a little bit of a sense for how ENORMOUS this thing is.  That seems to be the idea of the city. 

The Water Cube, a little bit before it lit up. Very cool stuff.

That's everything for the moment.  Tomorrow my Dad's going to a meeting, while the rest of us go off exploring somewhere.  Hopefully we'll decide where exactly in the next hour or so.  I'll try to keep you updated.

北京

I'm back. Sorry about the extremely long pause there; I was finishing off things in Kunming and didn't have that much time/inclination last week.  But now I have just arrived in Beijing, so I will possibly be back in form.  Hopefully I'll have some reflections on Kunming to post at some point pretty soon, but for now I want to talk about first impressions of this city.

1) It's BIG.  There are a lot of people living here, but more than that the place is massive.  I'd heard people say things along the lines of Beijing is built on a superhuman, rather than human, scale, and I'm definitely impressed that that is the case.  All the roads I've been on are 4-5 lanes each direction, and the blocks are gigantic.  I went walking for about forty minutes earlier, in a straight line, and literally crossed one street. 

2) It's pleasant.  I know that the pollution here is legendary, but I didn't see it today.  There was a huge brown pall that we had to descend through (I think it made the plane more turbulent than normal), but on the ground the sky was blue and absolutely gorgeous, just a little brown smudge on the horizon.  And it was cool! I forgot how much I love fall, but the air was that perfect crispness and it made me very, very happy.

3) It's inhabited by pirates!!! No joke.  I'd heard about the Beijing accent--it's actually what we studied, since my textbooks were printed here--but I still wasn't prepared to hear it spoken, especially by people who were being serious. Essentially, they add R's to the end of many, many words.  Literally multiple times a sentence. It's pretty awesome.  So you get people saying things like "Ni zairrrr narrrrrrrr??" or "Wo zhu zairrr zharrrrrrrr"  I approve :-).

The other nice thing about this place for me at the moment is that it's back in civilization. Kunming was a big city, but this is definitely more equipped with cushy pleasures.  Illustration:

--I just took a shower after dark using hot water that was not warmed by the sun.

--Then I pooped, sitting down, and flushed the toilet by pressing a button (not pouring a bucket of water in) and all of it disappeared.  What a sight.

--My clothes are currently in a dryer (granted, I'm paying $5 for the experience).

--I'm using high-speed wifi and have not had my connection suddenly disappear for over an hour.

:-D.  This stuff isn't really worth rejoicing over for very long, but it is kind of nice... 

Also I finally learned how to use my Chinese typing software correctly.  Yay! 所以现在我能写更多汉字！ I typed that so quickly, too!!!