Commuters travelling into London from the eastern suburbs are treated daily to the sight of construction vehicles, yellow lights blinking in the winter gloom, snaking across huge mounds of earth.
At first glance it appears a bleak, unpromising landscape, but in four years' time this previously neglected part of the English capital will become the centre of the sporting world.
While the focus now is thousands of kilometres away in Beijing, where preparations for the 2008 Olympic Games are entering the home straight, London's organisers (LOCOG) are setting a steady pace and preparing to lengthen their stride.
A small delegation from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) visited LOCOG headquarters last week.
The fact that they slipped in and out almost unnoticed by the ever-sceptical media was a relief for 2012 Olympics chief Sebastian Coe and his team.
While questions about the budget and security will inevitably resurface and construction hiccups are unavoidable, so far the physical progress of the 2012 project is impressive.
The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) are not slow in trumpeting their achievements.
A regular stream of media updates range from the rehousing of hundreds of feral cats and amphibians to the removal of Japanese knotweed and the arrival of giant soil-washing machines at London's Olympic Park.
URBAN RENEWAL
This week, it was announced that construction of the main Olympic stadium will begin three months ahead of schedule, in May. Some 800,000 tonnes of earth, some of it contaminated with low-level radiological material, has been removed to create the bowl that the 80,000-seater arena will sit in.
Work on the Zaha Hadid-designed Aquatics Centre, another of the Big Five projects in the 2.5-square-km park, is also on schedule with construction due to begin by the summer.
A tour of the site reveals the enormity of the project, one of the biggest urban renewal schemes the country has seen. It also illustrates the lengths being taken to ensure that the promise of the most sustainable modern Games is delivered.
