The facelift of Beijing

The speed of change keeps amazing me. It seems that over the last couple weeks, there is a remarkable acceleration in construction, remodeling, etc all over the city. The city is for sure gearing up for the Olympics and will do whatever it takes to present itself as a worldclass metropolis to the rest of the world. During the weekend, when I was taking a stroll through my neighborhood, I discovered that several small and old buildings have been demolished and are making room for new high rises. Also several DVD stores have been closed which can be seen as a sign that the government is serious about piracy. Sadly, also my favorite bakery is closed for remodeling. My district, the Chaoyang district, is home of the Olympic Green and it has plans to paint 523 buildings along the major roads that will lead to the Olympic venues. The area to be painted is roughly the size of 38,000 soccer fields. The housing complex across my office already had its new layer of paint in November. Painters seem to have a dangerous job, I took several pictures of these guys rappelling down a rope.