Beijing, September 2009
For those who have not seen it in person, the Olympic Track & Field “Bird’s Nest” Stadium is THE most impressive piece of contemporary architecture on the planet. I realize that not having seen some notable structures up close and personal (Gehry’s Bilbao Guggenheim, for example), I am in no position to make such a statement, but I’m standing by it nonetheless. I first saw the stadium, under construction, in a picture in The New Yorker. Having mistakenly (it happens!) thought that the structure was part of the Tate Modern in London, I found an excuse to visit the Tate and spent a day searching in vain for the improbable, organic, oversized steel form from the magazine. Later I read the article more carefully and discovered that I had missed the location by 8 or 9 timezones and vowed to one day make a pilgrimage to Beijing. Opportunity knocked this past week.
The Olympic venues are lit up until 9:30PM most nights. As colleagues spent the last evening of a 2-day meeting dining together, I guiltily declined their invitation and set off after dark to see the National stadium. I was so thoroughly enthralled by the Bird’s Nest, AquaCube and Olympic Mall, that I awoke early the next morning and went out again at 6:30AM to take more pictures before my flight home. I clicked away until my camera registered “Battery Exhausted”.
I let the pictures below speak for themselves. I show the day shots first, then those taken after dark:
- The amazing Bird’s Nest National Stadium
- It’s Huge!
- Skaters
- Rappel practice
- AquaCube and the 7-Star Hotel
- The Bird’s Nest at night
- Bird’s Nest detail
- What can I say – I am partial to the letter K
- The AquaCube
For those going to Beijing: I have visited numerous times. I have seen the Forbidden City and The Great Wall. And I have been subjected to Beijing’s general lack of civility and inattention to service. I AM NOT a a finicky traveller and I did not take offense, but I did notice. I also noticed that this trip was very different. Post-Olympic Beijing is a qualitatively different experience. The air is cleaner. The people are nicer. The service is better. The city planted almost a million trees in the run up to the Games and they created many magnificent public spaces. I understand that they also made attempts to teach some English to every taxi driver and to train all hotel workers how to deliver Western-style service and amenities. Travel here is much easier and much nicer than before. I would never have recommended Beijing as a travel destination before, but cannot help but do so now. I get a chance to go back and test this theory in November!
