China's Hottest Scaffolding 2007: Forbidden City, Beijing
I know the Beijing Olympics are coming up in less than a year and everyone's under a lot of pressure to finish cleaning up the city, but it kind of sucks when most of the "cool buildings" at the Forbidden City are covered with a thick layer of bamboo and green plastic netting.
However, not getting to see the inside of the the Hall of Supreme Harmony wasn't half as disappointing as discovering that they'd canned the old Roger Moore-narrated audio guide. Being guided around the Forbidden City by Bond himself was definitely the highlight of my three previous visits there: the new guide voice really tames down a lot of the history and lacks that charming British accent. Also, the new guides are programmed to automatically cue up the corresponding audio tracks as you walk around the facility, a feature that would be pretty impressive if it actually worked.
I say we hold a protest in the middle of Tian'anmen Square for the reinstatement of the old audio guides!
What, nobody's with me...?