Alien Egg and Twisted Donut

Christmas holidays are approaching and the excitement is growing here at school. We had our student Christmas concert on Thursday – the highlight was a Grade 1-3 hiphop dance group. We had class pictures under the Christmas tree also on Thursday. Santa has been making daily appearances at the school from 3:30 – 5:30 to help drum up new students. It is a bit disturbing to see the old fellow co-opted in this way, but the staff members under the beard have borne it with good grace. We have also been talking over our Christmas trip each morning over breakfast; it is hard to believe that it has come so quickly – we are on the old Christmas season fast-forward!

Friday night we went out to dinner with Don & Eve again – this time just the four of us. We picked a nearby restaurant, Pili-pili, an African themed restaurant. Don and I shared skewers of barbequed beef, mutton, venison and ostrich! We decided the ostrich was a bit stringy but all the other dishes were good. There was entertainment and one of our fellow teachers has become quite friendly with the African band members. They are also schoolteachers who moonlight in the house band. We have been told that they are great. Unfortunately, we left just as they were coming on because we had to be up quite early Saturday. We have promised ourselves to return when we can stay to hear them.

Saturday dawned bight, cold and clear! Don, Eve and Darryl bustled into our apartment about 9:15. They were joining us on our Saturday Discovery tour and were also staying in town for an evening formal event so wanted to leave their dress clothes and change later.
We chatted for a while and them rushed off to catch the bus. The tour was deliberately vague but we had a notion that we would see some of the Olympic venues that are under construction north of the school. So off we went in our big yellow school bus, bantering back and forth, singing Christmas carols and generally enjoying being together.

Sure enough our first stop was the ‘Bird’s Nest’ – the still under construction 91,000 seat Olympic Stadium. We couldn’t get into it, but we did jump out of the bus for a quick dash to take a picture of the unusual structure. It doesn’t seem to have a parallel or perpendicular line anywhere. It is supposed to simulate the ‘random patterns of nature.’
Nearby was the Olympic swimming pool – some sort of semi-transparent membrane stretched over a stainless steel frame. We strolled past the guard and got quite close to this one. We also saw the National Gymnasium and Olympic village that will house 168,000 people during the games – they were basically big construction sites. The concrete is up but not much else. Next we saw the former Asian Games venue, which is now an area of trendy apartments and western restaurants. Then it was off to see the new National Theatre, dubbed the ‘Alien Egg’, also under construction downtown near Tianamem Square. It is scheduled to be finished this summer and will house 3 separate stages seating over 6,000. Its exterior is completely clad in titanium and its modernistic style has attracted lots of criticism as it seems out of place in the centre of the city so close to the Forbidden City and the Great Hall of the People. There is lots of very modern architecture in Beijing but none so close to the old city.

We stopped for lunch in Wang Fujing – a big pedestrian shopping mall near Tianamen. We went into a shopping plaza to enjoy the very western surroundings and had a very western lunch at a Sizzler’s. I had a burger and also the salad bar. We could have been in Toronto or Vancouver. Afterwards Don, Darryl and I went into a big hat store and Don bought a cowboy hat while Brenda and Eve did Starbucks. We huddled for warmth while waiting for our bus – it was -6 C.

On the way back we saw the CCTV building (China TV) but elected to do a driveby. It is reputedly the most expensive building in the world at 1 billion US and is supposed to be constructed in the shape of two standing ‘Z’s’ at top out at 243 meters! It has been dubbed the ‘Twisted Donut’. Construction in Beijing is going on everywhere as everyone seeks to cash in on the Olympic boom and spend some of the western dollars that are flooding in because of the massive trade imbalances. There is a great deal of local controversy about the destruction of traditional hutongs and historic landmarks. But strangely in this supposedly communist country, these voices are drowned out in a frenzy of consumerism and entrepreneurship. For more on Beijing’s architectural controversies, see http://www.gluckman.com/BeijingArchitecture.html

Later that day, we saw Don, Eve and Darryl off to their event. We stayed home and watched a DVD; it was fun to see them dressed up and excited, but we were both glad to be staying home – it was cold and we were tired! We will see our colleagues from both schools Monday night as we have our school Christmas party together.

We leave for Sanya, Hainan on Wednesday morning and will also visit Hong Kong. We will be back in Beijing on December 30, and will do another blog recounting our southern adventures then.

To all our friends and family back home, we would like to wish a very Merry Christmas and a Happy 2007. We will be thinking of you all. We are looking forward to a restful and relaxing holiday and wish all of you the same. May the peace and contentment of the Holiday Season remain with you throughout the year!
First Posted December 17, 2006