I’ve uploaded all my snapshots from the Forbidden City to flickr.

Ahhh March, time of the N.C.A.A. basketball tournaments. And ever-present at the games are the college pep bands. 30 musicians are allowed, no amplification, and the brass section rules. As the NY Times notes, the song sets have a heavy helping of the oldies. Along with the usual crowd-pleasers (“Louie, Louie” one more time, anyone?), UCLA has hung onto “Build Me Up Buttercup” (tuba solo!), and USC will likely never retire “Tusk,” the Fleetwood Mac hit that featured their own marching band (and has become their anti-UCLA fight song). New songs are added to freshen things up, but the mainstays are reminders that cheering for the alma mater is a tradition that connects back into the alumni years.

The tragic New York City crane accident reminded Bellevue, WA residents of the crane collapse in 2006 that killed one man. The proliferation of cranes continues in downtown Bellevue. We are still in the habit of counting them whenever we’re at a stop light, often handing the task off to our 3-year-old whose tally gets more accurate by the day. The City of Bellevue actually published a news release this week that listed the 18 construction cranes and their associated projects. It includes a link to a PDF of 21 major projects under construction, 12 under review, and 7 in the pipeline. That’s a lot of change to the city’s landscape.

Today’s Beijing shot is a video I uploaded to Vox: How I got down from the Great Wall of China. We went to Mutianyu which had a lovely older section of the wall which we hiked in the quiet morning hours before the crowds. Here’s a better video someone on Youtube shot during their actual toboggan ride (and there’s plenty more on Youtube).

As I noted here a few years ago, the futuristic Eero Saarinen terminal at JFK Airport, former home of defunct TWA, will be refurbished as JetBlue builds a new terminal behind it. The structure’s concourses and departure lounges, however, were removed to make room for JetBlue. The Port Authority agreed to preserve one lounge. So one was sawed off and moved aside. It has sat at the airport for almost a year, awaiting its fate. But everyone with a say in the matter has now agreed that the money needed to restore the lounge and incorporate it into the new terminal would be better used in restoring the old one. So, JetBlue is free to demolish it. The NY Times also recently covered the careful dismantling of the gigantic stained glass window in the old American Airlines terminal.

My mom’s cooking made me very picky about Chinese restaurants, and now my Beijing trip has spoiled me on Sichuan and vegetarian Chinese food. At the Sichuan restaurant we went to, there were more spices than other ingredients on some of the plates (although that didn’t hinder some of us from eating the chilis and peppers as part of the meal, while most of the, perhaps smarter, Beijing residents ate around them). We went to a vegetarian restaurant near our office twice for lunch and ate some amazing faux meats, concocted out of various vegan ingredients. It was a far cry from the places I’ve been to that just do the same thing over and over with gluten and tofu. Then again, I always wonder if truly dedicated animal lovers actually want to eat something that so closely resembles the real thing.

You may be very familiar with that blue Valpak envelope that regularly arrives in your mailbox. Do you open it and look for deals? Or does it go right into the recycling bin? Valpak has been around for 40 years and now has 200 franchises in the U.S. and Canada sending 45 million homes that stack of coupons every month. They’ve opened a plant to consolidate all their printing in St. Petersburg, Florida, and they have a deal for online advertising with Google Maps. Instead of stuffing paper into envelopes like employees did in the early days, the printing plant’s machines wrap the envelope around the coupons. And that blue color? It was what the female employees picked early on as the most enticing, and focus groups continue to confirm it.

One of my favorite TV shows, and now a true homage to 1980’s teen culture, Square Pegs, is being released on DVD in May. And I’m pretty sure we have the fame of Sarah Jessica Parker to thank for that, especially since the 3-DVD set hits the stores 10 days before the Sex and the City movie hits the theaters. (thanks PCJM!)

Today’s China shots are all about tech spotting: Sun and Microsoft (at Tsinghua Science Park), Google, and IBM’s China Systems Center.

In seeing how much the Olympics related construction has taken over Beijing’s landscape, it’s hard to believe the actual event is only two weeks long. The buildings will of course function as valuable venues for years to come. With five months to go, construction is proceeding at a brisk pace (I saw welding sparks cascading down from the skeleton of a building late at night). Here are my moving taxi snapshots of: the unique CCTV building with its seemingly unsupported top section still being filled in, the “bird’s nest” which is the main Olympic stadium, an unfinished tower near the stadium with its large screen displaying the familiar Windows desktop, and the completed Olympic Tower which is home to the organizing committee.