Search and You Shall Find in My World

Showing posts with label beijing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beijing. Show all posts

14 August 2008

Fake Fireworks at Beijing 2008: Does It Matter?


It turns out that so many people from around the world were not aware that some fireworks displayed during the opening ceremonies of the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics were digitally made.

But does it matter?

To me it does.

For one, the Chinese government should be highly commended for that move for environmental and health reasons. A polluted city like Beijing have been the cause for alarm before the Olympics really started. One less pollutants.

Two, the Chinese are digital savvies no other country, I think, could overpower. The precise "footprints" of the supposed fireworks during the opening was very cool. No other nation could have done that.

Third, people from around the globe were entertained by the fireworks and the technology used.

Anyways, the Games is all about camaraderie and brotherhood and that whatever they did with the opening ceremonies is not all what Olympics is all about. The spirit of the Games will live on.

Long live China!


Photo by Erich Schlegel

12 August 2008

NOC Biography: Philippines (Data from Beijing2008 Website)

General Interest
Highlights:
Men's 200m breaststroker Teofilo
Yldefonzo won the Philippines'
first Olympic medal when he won
bronze in the 1928 Amsterdam
Games behind Japanese champion
Yoshiyuki Tsuruta.

Yldefonzo also won bronze in 1932
in the 200m breaststroke, with
Tsuruta again taking gold.

The Philippines has won nine
Olympic medals in total, but never
gold. Its two silver medals were both
won by boxers - Anthony Villanueva
in 1964 and Mansueto Valesco in 1996.
Anthem
Title: "Lupang Hinirang" [Beloved Land].
Composer: Words by Felipe Padilla de Leon,
music by Julian Felipe.
Inducted: 1948
Membership
Founding Date: 1911
Date of IOC Recognition: 1929
Officials
NOC President: José Cojuangco Jr.
NOC General Secretary: Stephen Hontiveros
IOC Member(s): Francisco J. Elizalde
Participation
First OG Appearance: 1924
Number of OG Appearance: 18
Summary:
Medals per sport
Sport Gold Silver Bronze Total
Athletics 0 0 2 2
Boxing 0 2 3 5
Swimming 0 0 2 2
Total 0 2 7 9





Medals per year




Year Gold Silver Bronze Total

1928 0 0 1 1
1932 0 0 3 3
1936 0 0 1 1
1964 0 1 0 1
1988 0 0 1 1
1992 0 0 1 1
1996 0 1 0 1
Total 0 2 7 9

20 July 2008

Salivating at Architectural Marvels (Read as An Envious Look at Weird Buildings and Structures)

I was amazed when San Miguel Corporation put up their weird building way back years ago. Many critics said it was an eyesore at that time. But just like any weird designs that has come of age, that building is now a landmark of its kind.

When Dubai started its fantastic albeit weird building madness to include adding more geographical mass they can call themselves as their invention, the world made a gasp. And salivating at their oil money while we protested in our own unknown country.

But as these developments come into view, millions share the same divided judgment about them. Of hate, joy, ridicule, amazement, desistance, euphoria, whatever. Just like when they build the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House, the Golden Gate Bridge, etc.

And now it’s China’s time to impress the world!

"The 91,000-seat Olympic Stadium is a tangle of seemingly random steel "twigs" curved into a graceful bowl and designed to look like a bird's nest. Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron, which also designed the Tate Modern museum in London, created the stadium.

A stone's throw from the "bird's nest" is the "water cube," an Olympic aquatic center covered with translucent blue panels that give it the appearance of being covered in bubble wrap. At night, it offers an otherworldly blue glow.

In the heart of Beijing , slightly to the west of Mao Zedong's portrait looking across Tiananmen Square , a shimmering, egg-shaped titanium dome rises from behind reflecting pools. Designed by French architect Paul Andreu , it's the new National Theater. Most people just call it "the egg."

The dazzling new $3.8 billion terminal at Beijing Capital International Airport , designed by Briton Norman Foster and built by 50,000 workers in just four years, is purported to be the largest structure and the most advanced airport terminal in the world.

The last of them is the new television building, the CCTV headquarters, and it can nearly make one dizzy standing on the ground and looking up at its odd, teetering 49-story towers connected by a multistory, cantilevered, jagged cross section over open space at a vertiginous 36 stories up in the air.

It's an audacious monolith that looks like two drunken high-rise towers leaning over and holding each other up at the shoulders.

The eye-catching building, which is nearly finished, will be the headquarters of China Central Television, the staid propaganda arm of China's ruling Communist Party, and it's perhaps the boldest and most daring of several new buildings that have given Beijing a stunning new appearance for the upcoming Summer Olympic Games."***


What will our country brag about?


*** Quoted from Yahoo!News
Pics from AP