Beijing Skyline

The pollution in Beijing has been pretty bad this September and early October - much worse than last year. However, there were a couple of fantastic days a week and a half ago. Margot took the opportunity to capture some beautiful sunset pictures from the apartment.

These first 2 are looking about west south-west.

This is the same view a little later.

For those of you who have already visited us the green building in the foreground is the Silk Market. For those of you who have not yet visited, I can guarantee a unique experience there. Well, at least it is unique in that you have not experienced it in the U.S.

This is the view to the east. You have seen this view before (Beijing Skyline) but here you can see the sunset reflecting off the building.

This is the same view a little later. These pictures were taken a couple of days after the Mid-autumn Festival. The moon is a little past full here but seeing it at all is reason enough to take a picture.












This is looking north-east. You can really see the sunset reflecting in this one.

The same view a couple of hours later after the moon has risen.

This really tall building is the China World Summit building. It is the tallest building in Beijing. Notice the purple lights up near the top. There is a bar and lounge up there.

Over the National Day holiday Margot and I and a Dutch colleague and his wife went up for drinks on a very nice evening. See the following pictures.

By the way, the building is 330 m or almost 1100 ft tall. This link describes an interesting concept --->  Vertical Running. I won't be participating!  Check out the video.

This is the view to the north from the 80th floor. Beijing is a REALLY big city.

This is the view to the south. That is the top of our apartment building in the bottom right. The SABIC offices are in the building just left of center in the middle.

I wasn't the only person that thought it was a nice day to take pictures.

The hotel staff seem to be pretty accommodating. This room was actually closed off but the let us go in to take pictures.

This is looking northwest after the sun has dropped below the mountains.

Click to enlarge.

This is looking due west. The tallest mountains are about 25 or 30 miles away. The city stretches out about 20 miles from this location to the foothills.

Here is the same view about 25 minutes later.

The large well lit horizontal building just left of the main road is the Great Hall of the People on the west side of Tiananmen Square.

Click to enlarge.

I put this together to help you get your bearings.

Last spring we went for a hike near Huang Caoliang. It is located in the mountains sort of behind the Forbidden City arrow.