Beijing Impressions, Day 4 continued

This evening I had a ticket for track and field, which means that I finally got to go to the Olympic Green and the National Stadium, otherwise known as the Bird's Nest.

What I hadn't realized from seeing it on TV is that the cross-hatched look isn't just a skin; that's the building's entire superstructure. The randomly criss-crossing girders continue all the way in. It's really quite stunning, like a magic trick that just gets better once you know how it's done. Ditto for the other buildings around it, like the National Aquatic Center and the International Broadcast Center. You'll just have to see the pictures.

The place holds 91,000, which is only a bit larger than Memorial Stadium in Lincoln (81,000). But I have to tell you, this one looks much, much, much bigger inside. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's the largest building I've ever set foot inside.

They play snippets of music in between events; they seem to like movie music. So far, I'm quite certain I've heard Amelie, American Beauty, and Pirates of the Caribbean. Plus, I could swear the cheerleaders were dancing to Rammstein.

Oh, and the discus robot! They were using these little souped-up RC cars to ferry the discuses (discii?) back, so that the officials didn't have to run around. I totally want one now.

Turns out that the Olympic Green isn't so much a green as an area where traffic has been roped off. For the central mall, instead of a field, they have a sort of sunken garden that's full of restaurants, artwork, shelters, light shows, etc. It was actually decently cool.

Thought on the way home: as horrific as the Beijing traffic has been, I realized that this is only half of it. For the duration of the games, even-numbered cars are only allowed into the city core on even-numbered days and vice versa. It must be completely insane here normally.

The little convenience store downstairs is proving useful in other ways. A bottle of tea cost me RMB 3 there; the identical bottle at the venues costs RMB 5. So that's a captive audience markup of, what, 66%? Nice...

Tomorrow: the Great Wall. Stay tuned.