davidnielsen's blog

Here are two more video glimpses from the amazing scene at the Great Wall.

What is the “real” Beijing?

Is it a canyon of gleaming high-rises or block after block of low-slung hutongs?

Is it a sprawling metropolis or jampacked urban jungle?

Is it thriving or destitute?

The answer to all of the above is yes - depending on where in Beijing you are.

This city of 17.5 million people defies easy categorization.

Opening Ceremony
There’s not enough time to fully elaborate on the colossal Opening Ceremony.

In a word, it was amazing.

Crooked portion of Great Wall

The Great Wall of China.

From all corners of the globe

Jet lag, which most thought had been eradicated from these parts days ago, reappeared unexpectedly overnight in room D3-1109A of the Green Homeland Media Village.

Evidently the cleaning crew failed to notice the invisible demon lurking beneath the guest’s bed.

David and Chairman MaoWe’re not paranoid. Really, we’re not.

Still, it’s easy to get that way. You can’t pull up the official Web site of the Dalai Lama here. You can’t get to Tibet.org, either. Instead you get this:

More observations from China:

The Chinese revere their elders, or at least gray-haired men. Subway riders offered seats Wednesday to Steve Ahillen and Nick Gholson, the two oldest journalists on the Scripps team, during our ride down to Tiananmen Square.

China is full of rules and regulations.

Some make sense.

Some are downright bizarre.

We tried today to get into the Bird’s Nest stadium, but were denied because we didn’t have a special badge given to those working on the rehearsal for the Opening Ceremony. That made sense.

The sign in the exercise room in the media village that says “No shouting” makes no sense.

Covering the Olympic Games sounds like an exciting and glamorous assignment. Sometimes it can be. But often times it isn’t very exciting –unless you like sitting, staring and exercising your fingers. Check out this quick glimpse at the “thrilling” life of an Olympic journalist.