Modernity and Tradition

Coming back from the Great Wall, we drove to the site of the 2008 Olympics. We can't really get in because the whole place is still under construction (the whole city is under construction, for that matter -- all we see is amazingly modern hi-rises going up everywhere) but we stopped nearby to get a couple of pictures. After all, it's not every day that you get to see an Olympic stadium that looks like a bird's nest and a swimming pool complex made of bubbles (supposedly it's safer in case of earthquakes)! Then our guide took us to a tea house where a young woman with a funny accent explained to us the differences between several types of tea, their properties, and how to drink them. We tasted various teas and ended up buying some, as well as some cups. As in many other instances in Beijing, we found out later that we were ripped off. Oh well. At least we had the lecture and we saw a bird that said "Nihao" (hello) and other things in Mandarin that we couldn't possibly understand.