Beijing
Beijing is an exhausting but rewarding round of palaces and museums, parks and factories, stores and banquet halls-a jolting juxtaposition of old imperial pomp and contemporary energy.The days begin early here, for tourists and locals alike. Dawn is perhaps when Beijing comes into its own, when a thin haze drapes itself over the rooftops, and the light effects bring out yet soften the city's features. As you peek out of your hotel window, you'll see the neighbours practising taijiquan (tai chi), occasionally interrupting the slow-motion movements for a gossip. A couple of joggers go panting past. The wide avenues, almost empty, seem pretentious and useless, but by 7 a.m. the great anthill has burst into activity. Waves of jingling bicycles -more than you've seen in your whole life-surge around a dense stream of buses, trucks and cars. The world's most unlikely rush hour has subsided by 8 o'clock, but the feeling that the throng is endless and impenetrable persists into the calm of the night.
The capital of China's billion people has a population of 13 million, but they are thinly spread: the city's area is calculated at a staggering 16,800 sq km (6,500-odd sq miles). With its thousands of years of history, Beijing is well endowed with great monuments from the age of emperors, poets and scholars. Designed as a series of concentric walled enclosures, Beijing's clear-cut plan often confuses visitors, simply by its sheer size. Mostly it's flat, a mercy for the millions who cycle great distances to work, though they now have to face an onslaught of private cars. In the Middle Ages, the emperors decided to do something about the capital's unrelieved flatness. They ordered hills to be artificially built just north of the Forbidden City, so they could go up and, in total privacy, enjoy a summer breeze and a bird's-eye view over the curved tile roofs of their imperial compound.
