Beijing 2009 - First Impressions

I went to Beijing in May this year, and it was quite a memorable experience. Taking a red-eye flight from Kuala Lumpur, we arrived at 6.00 a.m. in the morning. Having had no sleep at all as I am terrible at sleeping on planes, I was naturally a bit groggy. 

I was expecting Beijing to be a BIG city, but wasn't prepared for how big it actually was. Another big surprise was how well-planned and systematic every thing seem to be. The roads were great, and landscaping is really amazing - it seemed like every square inch was covered with planting of some sort. The pre-Olympics sprucing up must have done wonders. Another great thing was we had about 3 days of blue skies on our 7 day trip, not a bad average for Beijing which is infamous for its haze.

Cars, pedestrians and motorbikes co-exist quite well in the city. There were a lot less bicycles then I expected.

Some parts of the city is like any big metropolis in the World.