As part of National Blog Posting Month I have even drug my China Sights blog kicking and screaming off of life support. The posts for that blog are easy to do since Flickr has a Post-To-Blogger button built right into it. I just lost interest in posting regularly because I was trying to be too clever and post the pictures in an order that made since whether you read the blog daily or in reverse chronological order in the archive. That got to be too much anguish and required too much advance planning. Now I’m just doing random pictures and cross-linking them from Flickr so I don’t repeat myself.
Also, China Sights never got much traffic. Ten or twenty hits a week was a lot and I just didn’t have the drive to pimp it too much at the expense of this blog. Part of the problem seems to be that travel blogs are too much like watching someone’s vacation slide show. What was cool and meaningful to the traveler is just boring and repetitive to an audience.
The photo at the top of this post is a bonus picture not on the China Sights blog. The new Olympic Stadium being built in Beijing is nicknamed The Birds Nest for its obvious resemblance to a real birds nest if birds were 200 feet tall. We drove around it to get a good view, but they wouldn’t let us on the construction site. The image you see is three 8 megapixel shots photoshopped together. The full size image is 8182 pixels x 2010 pixels and nearly 2 megabytes in size. If you want to see it in all its glory, click here or just look at this detail from it showing some workers near the top taking a break.The grey sky in the background was typical of our entire stay in Beijing. Behind that haze is probably several high rise buildings that just can’t be seen through the pea soup pollution. While I had no trouble breathing while I was there, I’m not a world class athlete. The 2008 Olympics are going to be very interesting if China can’t get the air cleaned up in time. If nothing else, the haze will sure make for crummy blimpcam pictures.
BlatantCommentWhoring™: Have you been following the pre-Olympic pollution publicity?
8 comments:
Wow, what an awesome structure. Your picture is magnificent too. Good job photoshopping, though I can definitely see where the three photos were stitched together.
If I had used a tripod and locked the exposure, it would have been more seamless. But I think it came out pretty good for just snapping off three shots while the rest of the van was yelling at me to hurry up.
And the photoshopping was just clicking a button. Someone with real talent could have adjusted the exposure better.
I am fascinated by the idea of Blog Posting Month. However I can't play with it since I missed last weekend. Next year.
I am kind of keeping an eye on the pollution stories in the ramp up to Beijing. Brown air can't be good.
dr
That's awesome. It looks like something that should be on that MegaStructures show. Or has it already?
Again, I have to say - I love the China Sights blog. I have never been to China (and with a kid about to arrive, I doubt I will make it anytime soon). Perhaps it is just my voyeuristic nature - but, I really love hearing about and seeing your trip in the snippets you present. Your effort is appreciated!
I'll see stuff about the pollution now and again, but to be honest it bores me. You'd think if the Olympic organizers were that serious about it they wouldn't have given the Olympics to China.
Fascinating picture. I agree with Jeff, it should be on MegaStructures.
I love the China Sights Blog too!
What a cool structure! But I am really intrigued by the bubble wrapped aquatic centre that I saw on your other blog.
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