The CCTV by Rem Koolhaas of OMA - it was only a couple blocks away from our hotel!
The Great Wall itself on our second day in Beijing. We walked up the steeper side, man was it rough!
A friend took a photo of me with the Wall in the background! "One world, one dream."
Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Take that, M-A-O!
The Olympic Stadium, aka the Bird's Nest, by Herzog & DeMueron.
The Water Cube by PTW Architects and ARUP.Beijing was an enormous shock after Japan. Our guide during our stay in Beijing informed us that the city underwent enormous changes and modernization, especially in preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games. Aside from the more developed areas, other places brought such words as "squalid" and "poverty-stricken" came to mind. We rode the subway once and it was crowded, stuffy and nauseating. The people there push and shove without batting an eye, and I never once learned the word in Mandarin for "sorry" or "excuse me" (as opposed to Japanese - "sumi-ma-sen"). So I definitely felt culture shock there, and much of our group experienced homesickness and rancor at the environment. But Dunhuang proved to be a better change after three days in Beijing.
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