Beijing

I think a lot of people assume Beijing to be a mess during the Olympics and tend to stay away thinking like Yogi Berra, "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded." On the contrary, it's probably the best time this decade to have visited! The air is relatively clean, everyone is polite, the new projects are all open, and most importantly the traffic flows.

We're staying just a couple blocks away from the northeastern side of the Forbidden City at a Days Inn which is rather new. The location is central for all things in Beijing but the Olympic Green is directly north by about ten subway stops.

Yesterday after arrival, we headed to the cluster of venues at the Olympic Green but couldn't get too close to any of the venues since everything is fenced off until performance time. Outside of the main subway stop nearby, there were scalpers and we went around pricing tickets. For Track and Field at the Bird's Nest, prime tickets are offered at roughly $300 USD each up from $125 USD original price. I don't think we'll go since Shauna isn't interested at all and it's more than I'd like to pay inorder to sit out in unreal humidity. We might head into some events but there isn't anything that interests us much.