Stuck in traffic in downtown Beijing

First, as always, the link to the pictures:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=182yonli.2rhih8ca&Uy=-9btkd&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0

Alright, remember how I said that traffic in Beijing is a nightmare? If this ain't proof, I don't know what is. The first few pictures were taken as I stuck my head up through the sunroof on Tim's car. The picture taken next to the big bus on the right hand side, I took standing between the bus and Tim's car. I mean, we weren't going anywhere, so why not stand in the middle of the road?

So then we continued to sit in traffic, and since I had the camera anyway, I just started snapping pictures of anything that caught my eye. The sticker with the red, yellow, and green bubbles with 2008 on it is apparently a sign that the driver of that vehicle is a safe driver, something to do with getting ready for the 2008 Olympics. I don't know why they bother. Then again, I couldn't, in good conscience, put one of these stickers on my car either, so I guess I shouldn't gripe. Yes, that is a big movie poster for the Harry Potter movie in Chinese. I guess they show the movie in its normal English, with Chinese subtitles. At least, that's how we watched it on the flight over.

The picture of Starbucks was taken at this mall called The Place. Yes, Starbucks has truly taken over the world. (Speaking of American things in China, I want to comment on the various fast-food joints over there. Most prevalent are the KFC's and the McDonalds. They taste the same as they do in the States. The Pizza Hut, on the other hand, is a completely different story. The Pizza Huts in the States don't hold a candle to the Pizza Hut's in China. For one thing, the Chinese PH's aren't nearly as greasy as the ones back home. The crust is light and fluffy and not drenched in cooking oil. The toppings are also less fatty. I wish the PH's here in the States were this good!)

The Place was pretty cool. I mean, it's a mall. Kind of an indoor/outdoor mall. The difference between the two pictures of me looking up and taking a picture of me are the person standing next to me in the second picture. That would be a guard telling me to stop taking pictures inside the mall. That was kind of unnerving.

The giant TV screen is exactly that: a humongous giant-screen TV that faces the street. This could never happen in Texas. Drivers in Texas get distracted easily enough as it is; something like this would cause daily accidents on the street. Come to think of it, I'm surprised the lawyers in America haven't thought of this yet.

Attached to that and running a good length of the exterior of the mall is a giant animated ceiling. I took a movie of it, which I'll try to e-mail to y'all, but the still pictures will hopefully give you an idea of what it was like. If you've been to Vegas, you know what this is like. It was a first for me & Cyndy, so it was mind-boggling to say the least.

Either my camera died or we left after that last picture. Thankfully the drive home wasn't nearly as long as the drive there.