Beijing

Beijing is the capital of China, and is its second largest city (after Shanghai) with an urban population of over 12 million, over 17 million including the "suburbs". China actually has 50 cities with urban populations greater than 1 million (many with significantly more than that).

It seems like half of the poeple here must work for BOCOG (Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games) based on the number of volunteers in white and blue shirts I see, and the other half must be police or in the military. The military presence is everywhere, but for the most part, they appear to be unarmed.


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Beijing is located in northern China, and sits at about the same latitude as Toronto, but it does not enjoy the moderating effects of a large body of water like Lake Ontario. They have long, hot, summers, and long, cold, winters, with very short spring and fall periods. It can go from 35C to -5C in the span of a few weeks.

The temperature this week has been in the high 80's, with humidity to match, so that it feels much hotter. There is no breeze, and the air hangs thick and visibility is poor. Large dragonflies hover all over the place. I have seen blue sky and sun only once so far.

This is really the last densely populated area between here and the Arctic. Going north from Beijing, there are some mountain ranges, and some plains, then Mongolia, Siberia, and the North Pole.

China, despite being the 3rd largest country in the world (after Russia and Canada), has only one time zone, so here, on the eastern side, the sun rises at 5:20am and sets at 7:20pm.

The city is much greener than I expected, especially around the Oympic venues. There are literally millions of trees (28 million planted in the last two years to try to help with pollution). The trees and flowers looks very similar to what you would find in Canada (a mix of conifers and deciduous).

The highways are lined with flower boxes, and fluourescent lights along the guard rails. The roads appear nearly deserted, except for Olympic traffic, and I have not seen the body crushing masses of people that I had expected, even as I walked around downtown near Tiananmen Square.

Most of the (few) vehicles I have seen are Volkswagon or Hyundai (very popular as a Taxi), although there have been a few BMW's and Mercedes, and I have seen one Toyota Camry, and one Chrysler Sebring. As the Chinese economy grows, and more people can afford cars, there is a growing potential for catastrophic environmental impact.

The city is spotless, and there is no litter anywhere. An army of people with brooms is constantly sweeping and cleaning the streets. Are these amoung the 500 million who live here on less than $2 a day? Somehow, I doubt that anyone within the city limits could do that, although many things are very inexpensive. A 10 minute taxi ride to the subway from the Forbidden City cost only 10 Yuan (about $1.60), how can they be making any money on that given the price of gas these days?

I had a good 10 hour sleep from about 1pm to 11pm on Saturday (after a 19 hour shift on Friday/Saturday), so am feeling much refreshed, although my cold is hanging on. It may take me another day with a good sleep before I can try venturing out after work (sometime between noon and 5pm).

On Friday morning, I thought I had visited Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. As it turns out, what I thought was Tiananmen Square was actually the outer courtyard of the Forbidden City (it was huge, but not as large as I had thought it might be). Tiananmen square is actually across the street from the gate I used to enter the Forbidden City, and it really is huge, so large that there are no deliniations visible to let you know that it is one place. I will have to visit it again.

I have some great pictures from the Forbidden City, but taking time to take good pictures meant that I couldn't really join a tour, so I hope to visit it again too, and learn more about the history there. I actually spent three hours walking around and taking pictures (until my camera battery died), and saw only a fraction of what there is to see there.