view from the birdsnest

The scene is so dramatic! From left to right, this is what you see: 1st, a 5-building (hotel/office/mall) complex in the form of a stylized dragon. The head is about 20 stories high. the body abut 15, and each building has a gigantic video screen showing olympic highlights. Then the water cube; lit mostly blue, but changing lots of different ways. In front of the water cube is a huge waterpark/fountain with coored lights and people dashing through in the warm night. All around rhe grounds, the 5-headed light poles also light up with little led lights. Then there's a tower called the pagoda--pobably a security tower, looks like a series of suspended glass pyramids, and it also lights up in a different changing color patterns. Then there's another buiding, called digital Beijing,that lights up with circuit-like patterns, and the national stadium, low, with an inverted parabola roof. And over it all looms the birdsnest, glowing red like a jack o lantern. The level of detail is just "fantasmagical", says adam, who loved the fact that the path way lights are designed to look like the birds nest. We wish we could buy some to install at krisana park. One poorly lanned detail, however, was a lack o designated taxi stands. We walked for miles to find a place to catch a cab, and when we finally found one, no one wanted to drive to our hotel (about 45 minutes away.) We were rejected by about 5 cabs and didn't get home until 1 am!