China's Tien'amen gate

The ancient Tien'amen gate had a face lift and was only revealed a day before the opening of the Olympic games. This gate was the grand structure that the Emperor passed through when entering or exiting his palace. The colors and paint were just as lively and fresh as most of Beijing this week. The streets and buildings all were refreshed and beautiful. Though I greatly respect old architecture as it is, I can appreciate the usefulness of revitalizing the area so near a tourist attraction.

Amazingly, on a Thursday afternoon... at 11pm, the place was swarming with people... mostly Chinese as well. There were foreigners mixed in, but nothing like the main Olympic areas we have been in.

Today was a very special day. I had been asked to assist a journalist on her project. This meant that not only would I get to meet an amazing Chinese journalist, but was also going to get to do something.... and something fun. Without going into details about her project, or ruining a later post, I will just say that it involved a bit of investigation...

Fan is an amazing woman. She is very intelligent, clever, and has a quick wit. Though English isn't her native tongue, she has few problems getting her point across.

For lunch she treated me to a special native dish... ok... it was just noodles, but it was really good. She told me the sauce was made of finely chopped pork... but it was a sauce. That must take a whole lot of chopping. :O

Cullen and his coworker went out to find cell phones and were going to meet us when the finished... so they took the bikes...

As we were well into our antics, the looming clouds decided to rupture and cry their eyes out... all over us. Cullen and his friend were still out getting phones and we were forced into a post office for a time... waiting for some little bit of let up in the rain.

Cullen found us, and once we were able to head back into the streets.. and back to the apartment... the rain had washed all desire to explore from our bones today. We were headed back to the safety of the apartment: Myself and Fan took the subway, and Cullen rode the bicycle back with his coworker. The race was on.

I totally expected that they would beat us back. The bicycles are a little slower than the subway, but we had to make a transfer, and that takes a bit.

Oddly enough. The subway won by more than 30min. I think this may mean that there will be some bike modifications.