Beijing is messy

In article ,
says...

Whatever they demolish, Beijing will still remain a fascinating city.

Perhaps if you have a private helicopter to get from A to B...

By the way, yesterday it took us three hours to get to the Great Wall
(Jinshanling) and two and a half to get back. Add to that the hour spent
in the morning to get to the temple of heaven and you get six and a half
hours by taxi to see two tourist attractions.
--

Alfred Molon
http://www.molon.de - 6000 photos from Asia, Africa and Europe

In article ,
what says...

It's got some excellent shopping, stupendous food and a few other
things you'll not find many other places in the world, let alone
within China. I was sad when I had to leave a day early.

I wish I knew where these "stupendous" places are, because right now we
are booking the flight to Xi'an.

Shanghai is also a big city, but is orders of magnitude better than
Beijing. There is the Bund-New Pudong- Nanjing Lu area, with attractions
all in walking distance, a better subway system + you can take a taxi to
Yu Yuan for shopping in a beautiful neighbourhood.
--

Alfred Molon
http://www.molon.de - 6000 photos from Asia, Africa and Europe

In article ,
says...

It's a pretty minimal subway system (the central part is just one loop
that follows the 2nd ring road and an east-west line), and I think the
Hilton is at least 1.6km off of it, as is Heaven Temple. That's 2
miles of walking.

Check the following URL for a map of the subway:
http://www.urbanrail.net/as/beij/beijing-map.gif

Most people walk at about 4 miles/hour so it's a 5 minute walk. I've
done it a number of times. Even allowing for slipping on the gobs on
the sidewalk it's still less than 10 minutes.
(BTW 1.6km = about 0.99 miles)

1.6km at 6 Km/h is a 15 minutes walk, assuming you know where the place
is.

Perhaps Molon has some physical limitation that prevents him from
walking a mile. In any case, in my 7 trips there in the past 5 years
(most recent was last january), I've found it easy to get around and
quite interesting in a large-city sort of way.

Perhaps my sweet wife who has just spent over an hour walking in the
park (and still has a lot more walking to do) is a bit tired ?

Besides the subway system in Beijing is very, very underdeveloped.
--

Alfred Molon
http://www.molon.de - 6000 photos from Asia, Africa and Europe

In article ,
says...

I think the limitation is called "a small child".

Luckily we didn't bring the baby to Beijing... Locals advise families
with children not to bring babies younger than one year out on the
street.
--

Alfred Molon
http://www.molon.de - 6000 photos from Asia, Africa and Europe

I can't think how he could have done it better. I went to about four
tourist sites but I didn't really feel obligated to do anything and
there was really many people at those places. Too bad it was a wasted
trip but now he doesn't have to go back there. My mom's friends have
had similar things to say about BJ before I went: they went because
it's BJ but there wasn't anything meaningful for them otherwise and
makes u want to get up and go home right away so he's not really
saying anything so radical. And they are still burning coal in a lot
of places, nu?

I don't think BJ culture is going to change for awhile even as the
infrastructure improves. HK celebrities are relocating to BJ because
of advantages over Shanghai - I think the broad spirit is the
foundation for a good future and what makes a great city in the long
run - even though right now living in luxury doesn't really extend
beyond their front door. The thing is - BJers are really high quality
- so if you have foreign money - you can live comfortably and possibly
rub elbows with people u don't have access to back home. We kind of
are getting away with special treats but knowing who we are dealing
with - unlike being expats in other places, we tended to be less ugly
and disrespectful to private citizens in BJ.

I didn't bike or walk in BJ. There weren't sidewalks in some places
and the thoroughfares are HUGE and car accident fines demand very
little renminbi.

I rode around and got stuck in traffic for hours but I don't have any
bad memories of BJ because I was always stimulated - I wasn't thinking
every day has to count because I am paying for hotels which is the
usual case with me on holiday. Plus, u have to have someone to chat
with in the car. He obviously didn't have fascinating drivers with
lots of thrilling gossip.

It's super mas dusty.

Battle to halt sandstorms continues in north
www.chinaview.cn 2005-10-12 08:47:16

BEIJING, Oct. 12 -- Efforts to curb one of the greatest threats to
North China's environment will continue over the next five years.

Desertification, which feeds seasonal sandstorms, has long been a
focus of national concern.

Plans to create a "Green Great Wall" of forests across North,
Northwest and Northeast China are to be further promoted during the
2006-10 period.

The scheme is believed to be the world's largest ecological
project, officials for the State Forestry Administration (SFA) said at
a press conference in Beijing over the weekend.

According to Liang Baojun, an official in charge of the massive
shelterbelt, more than 7.7 million hectares of trees will be planted
along the "Green Great Wall" during the country's 11th Five-Year Plan
period.

First started in 1978, the forests are designed to stave off
erosion threatening 4 million square kilometres of land across 551
counties of 13 northern provinces 42 per cent of China's total
territory .

"To date, the barrier forests built over the past two decades have
protected over 70 per cent of cultivated land across the three northern
areas with 167 million rural residents benefiting," said Liang.

"In the years ahead, one of the most important things for us to do
is to further consolidate the shelterbelt in the 2006-10 period," Liang
said.

The three northern areas account for over 98 per cent of China's
land affected by desertification and 96 per cent of the country's sandy
land including the Gobi desert.

Sandstorms and encroaching sand dunes have buried farmland,
pastures, towns and villages and threatened railways, highways and
irrigation facilities.

China has made significant progress in curbing sandstorms with the
help of the shelterbelt. The storms have occurred less frequently over
the last two years.

Last year, only three springtime sandstorms hit Beijing, proof of
the effectiveness of the Beijing-rim Sandstorm Prevention project, said
Liu Tuo, an official with the SFA.

However, he made it clear that sandstorms will not vanish in China
and increasing green coverage is the only resort.

"As a natural phenomenon, sandstorms are decided by the climate and
the earth's surface," said Liu who is in charge of desertification
control.

Sandstorms can be triggered by strong winds blowing across large
barren areas which provide abundant sand, he explained.

Situated in the Central Asia sandstorm region, one of the world's
four largest sandstorm regions, China now has more than 1.74 million
square kilometres of land affected by desertification, only 530,000
square kilometres of which can be curbed, experts say.

The remaining 1.2 million square kilometres are permanent deserts.

In China, areas frequently affected by sandstorms include the
Xinjiang Uygur, Ningxia Hui and Inner Mongolia autonomous regions and
Shaanxi Province, said Liu.

(Source: China Daily)

are you going to put up Seoul pix?

That's like my first trip and I didn't want to go to the must see sites
anyway. I arrived 45 minutes before Temple of Heaven closed so
obviously not enough time and you can't do all the sites in one day
like Disney HK. It really drags out and you're thinking "screw this!"

What did you eat?

wrote:
That's like my first trip and I didn't want to go to the must see sites
anyway. I arrived 45 minutes before Temple of Heaven closed so
obviously not enough time and you can't do all the sites in one day
like Disney HK. It really drags out and you're thinking "screw this!"


Huh? So you think Disney HK is better than going to Beijing? Why not
just go to that small world place in Shenjen and be done with world
travel. You can skip all those messy flying and walking.


What did you eat?