I was reminded of why I wasn't particularly fond of living here the year I studied abroad. Literally from one block to the next, you can see the effects of the smog. See that Tag Heuer billboard? Notice it's a bit murky. The people above probably had to ask for directions cause the building they were looking for was covered in smog! Maybe not, but you catch my drift. Supposedly cars are being restricted to operate on alternating days before the Olympic games. Not sure if it's making a big difference though. Los Angeles traffic's got nothing on Beijing. Now that's bad.
Now don't get me wrong, they did clean things up a bit, especially around the most touristy areas. One other thing I noticed was that all the cheapy Xia Li cab cars (burgundy red ones) from 2002 when I was there are all gone. They have replaced them with clean looking Hyundais, the red and blue ones.
The Olympic stadium (aka bird's nest) camouflaged in smog.
Now onto the Great Wall of China.
Working our way up...
Taking photos along the way...
...as well as rest stops.
Guns of steel. Oh yeah.
Almost to the top... and breaking a few rules along the way.
We made it. Actually, not really. You can't really ever 'make it all the way' when it comes to the Great Wall.
Lady taking a page out of Humpty Dumpty's page.
Workers at the bottom of the Great Wall.
The Forbidden City.
Young boy playing his own game of soccer.
These two were nice enough to allow me to photograph them. Think they're together by chance?
Quite possibly the scariest looking boy I've seen in my life.
And that's it for Beijing.
