Preparing for Beijing

The only time that I was in Beijing was in 1996. Summer between my freshman and sophomore year in college. At that time, some improvements had been made to the city's transportation in preparation for a bid to an earlier Oympics, I think the 2000. Improvement basically meant mini-bus access throughout the city. There may have been trains but I surely did not ride it. I loved the crowd, the dirt, the food, and the gray air and gray buildings of the city. I hated the heat and the diarrhea that I got from eating the food.

Now, I am just trying to think how the city is going to handle the crowd this coming summer. It was crowded on a regular summer day. The buses were always packed. All the tourist spots were always packed. Add to that the millions of foreign visitors who are going to flock the city; it's going to be a chaos.

There's so much money poured into construction in preparations for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
My uncle-in-law sent me some articles about it. The European hot shots have their names on several of the largest newest structures. Amidst all the bustle, I found something that I actually liked; a serene, peaceful, yet ultra-contemporary creation: Ullens Center for Contemporary Art. From the image that I saw, there is a definite similarity to the Kimbell Museum that I visited with my colleagues back in 2003. It goes against all the obnoxious creations elsewhere in the city. Beijing needs something like this.

I am not that interested in going to the Olympics. I don't want to deal with the crowd, the heat, or the diarrhea. But I would love to visit the Ullens Center. Hey, maybe when we are all done raising kids, say 20 years from now, we can take another "educational" architectural trip; this time to Beijing.

checkout the article on LA Times