was having on the city. Along with the outrageous stadiums they have built and the extensive advertsing campaigns going on, we were most intrigued by the amount of censorship that goes on here. Any stories on Tibet were blacked out on CNN, and after the protests in France of the Olympic torch, headlines in the CHina Daily newspaper would read "France greets torch with passion"... It truly makes you appreciate even our biased media back in the states.
We ventured into the Forbidden City in the center of town across from Tianemen Square. Built from 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 surviving buildings with 8,707 bays of rooms and covers 720,000 square metres. It is absolutely beautiful, and even amidst the awful pollution that has covered in dust some of the surviving relics, it has a magical, surreal effect on anyone who enters.
Our last stop was 798, the famous art district of Beijing. It is an old Russian factory complex that has been turned into a maze of galleries of all sorts. Unfortunately while we were there they were putting all of the power lines undeground so the streets were nearly impossible to walk on as they were all being dug up, and Rob and I spent most ofthe day cracking up at the western women wearing fancy clothes and high heels and teetering all over the place while being led around by rather embarassed Chinese guides. Luckily, I left my heels at home... We found a few interesting pieces but nothing to write home about and after a few hours of jumpng over trenches into galleries without power, we decided to call it a day.
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