I'm feeling very Olympic today...

After three weeks in Beijing I finally made it out to Andingmen Dajie to see the Olympic village today. Its obviously still very much under construction so the site is very dusty etc., and its hard to get close to the action as their are guards everywhere. But wondering around was interesting anyway as three of the buildings are very out of the norm.

The main stadium is built to resemble the intertwined twigs of a bird's nest (not really sure why?), while the communications centre will look like a microchip (fair enough link there). The aquatics arena is on its own mission altogether with thousands of suspended Teflon air pockets combining to form a translucent cube that will apparently be very earthquake resistant and energy efficient.

The National Olympic Stadium in all its martian spaceship-like glory...

And the even more funky aquatics centre.

And what (the architects say...) they will look like next year.

The communications centre. The slits will supposedly be illuminated waterfalls come Olympics time.

Which should look something like this.

What... no leaning on spades while one guy works? We're not in Africa anymore Toto...

One concern that may become an issue closer to the games is the air in this city. Expect to see athletes breathing through airfilters... Apparently they are making strides in combatting polution, but if thats the case I can't begin to imagine what it used to be like!

And a couple of random pics, 'cause I can.

I just had to take a picture of this... "Beijing First Experimental Primary School". Hmmm...

Off to school on a sunny spring day in Beijing.