The 'TRON' building and its burnt out cousin

We're staying a couple of blocks from China's main TV headquarters, which, in the current haze, looks like something out of a Philip K. Dick novel, only re-imagined to be included in the gloom of a TRON world.

Next to it however is the burnt out shell that never opened. When I asked about it at dinner tonight, local urban legends abound. One irrefutable fact remains. It went up like a firecracker last Chinese New Year.

Posted via email from John Hutchings

UPDATE:

Here's a pic of me and said architectural wonder:

Hmmm...what shall we do today? Lots of steps, that's what.

Our second day on the ground was an eventful one. A trip about an hour's drive northwest of Beijing to Bādálǐng to visit the Great Wall.

It was a bit frosty and definitely snowy, but the sun managed to burn through. It was wondrous to see the scale of it and then to walk, or rather, scramble the thing. In some places, with the icy conditions, it was quite daunting.

One thing interesting that you have to see up close - Chinese over the years have left their personal mark on the Wall. Messages etched into the stone. Suppose you could call it graffiti, but I saw it more as generations leaving their near present mark as part of this monument's rich historical past.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Huh, I guess I'm in Beijing

Have been in transit/awake for 30h. now, so you'll have to bear with me.

We arrived here at about 5pm on Sunday (after leaving Calgary at 8am on Saturday). This whole International date line thing is a bit of a boggler.

We're staying in the Business district, but we still managed to stretch our legs tonight and visit a local 'goods' market. With Matt's haggling assistance, I procured a nice 'Rolex' as well as some other nifty doodads.

We're off to the Great Wall and other significant monuments tomorrow before doing what we came to do - business.

As an aside, and as you might well imagine, Twitter and Posterous are blocked here (at least on the network we have access to). After some Matrix-like lateral thinking, we figured out how to make this work.

I'll post up more photos as they come.

Posted via email from John Hutchings