Friday, April 17, 2009
China - Crowne Plaza (Pictures)
I'm staying at the Crowne Plaza directly across the street from the Olympic Village (click on any of the pictures in this post to see a larger, high-resolution image).
The smog in Beijing isn't as bad as I thought it would be, mostly because we haven't had a really bad day since I've been here. There's always a haze in the air (even at night). The buildings around the hotel are very interesting. Some of the high rises have enormous chinese ideograms on their roofs -I have no idea why.
I took a day time shot of the skyline and you can get a sense of the smog:
The building in the background on the left is shaped like a dragon (view the high resolution version of the picture by clicking on it). It has a 5-story television embedded in the middle). I'm told the local Chinese thinks its pretty ugly but I'm fascinated. I wonder if they let you travel up to the top floor. The amazing thing is that high-rise construction is everywhere. They're putting these buildings up incredibly fast.
The Crowne Plaza is a 5 star hotel and exceptionally nice. I called down to the front desk to have some laundry done and they sent someone up to my room to pick it up so quickly that I was still in a state of undress (how embarrassing).
I've been meaning to take a few pictures of the hotel for the last couple of days, but either forget or don't have my camera with me. We worked late tonight and got to the hotel after the sun went down. I thought the night shots would be good so I made the extra effort.
The smog in Beijing isn't as bad as I thought it would be, mostly because we haven't had a really bad day since I've been here. There's always a haze in the air (even at night). The buildings around the hotel are very interesting. Some of the high rises have enormous chinese ideograms on their roofs -I have no idea why.
I took a day time shot of the skyline and you can get a sense of the smog:
The building in the background on the left is shaped like a dragon (view the high resolution version of the picture by clicking on it). It has a 5-story television embedded in the middle). I'm told the local Chinese thinks its pretty ugly but I'm fascinated. I wonder if they let you travel up to the top floor. The amazing thing is that high-rise construction is everywhere. They're putting these buildings up incredibly fast.
If you look between the two buildings on the right you can see the Olympic Stadium (the bird's nest). I'm hoping to take a walk around the village this weekend. Hopefully I'll be able to catch a break from work. Come back soon, hopefully I'll have some pictures posted.
-Eric (Dad)
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