So my first impressions of Beijing.
The place is huge. Like tremendous. It's mainly the sprawl that makes me say that. Not that there aren't big buildings, but it's just that they're not that aspect that really grabs you. It's more a matter of looking at the map and thinking something is right across the way and then it's a 30 minute cab ride. In most major cities in the US, it may take two hours, but if you keep walking for long enough you'll end up where you're going. That's not the case here.
The smog is just how people describe it. You can see about a half mile and then it sort of fades to gray. Very unfortunate because the city would probably be very beautiful otherwise. It doesn't have that much of a smell though.
Today I wandered around Jingshan park and a certain infamous square. The history in these places goes back centuries if not millenia. The age of the buildings etc is comparable to the places I saw when in Israel. However, it doesn't look old. If anything a lot of it feels almost touristy. My theory is that it's because the buildings are painted and re-painted due to Asian architecture's emphasis on color.
The language is like nothing else. When overhearing Spanish in Miami I can sort of figure out what people are saying. Maybe not word for word, but I can definitely get the gist vis-a-vi intonation and context. That's not the deal with Mandarin. The intonation is entirely different from Romance languages. When people are speaking you have absolutely NO idea what's going on. This caused quite a little issue immediately after arriving. When traveling around the States I can figure things out as I go along. There's not a lot of planning involved. One thing I neglected to do was to print out the address of the hotel in Mandarin, though I did write it down in English. Unfortunately despite the street signs being written in both scripts, it turned out the cab driver couldn't figure it out from the English name of the street. Luckily I wrote down the phone number as well, but we drove around for quite a while before figuring it out. Needless to say, before leaving the room today I took a piece of the hotel's stationary that has the address written in Chinese on the bottom.
You can tell the city is growing. There are cranes everywhere. When the cab took me through some areas with high rises the designs of the buildings were beyond innovative. Somehow though it doesn't feel new. The city feels almost dilapidated. It might have something to do with the smog.
Traffic is anarchy. Seriously. It makes Manhattan look like a quaint southern town. Walk signals mean nothing and in the battle of cars v pedestrians the cars take no prisoners. It's like people on foot just don't register. Cyclists must be insane. One of the things on my list was a bike tour of the city, but I decided against it.
The car situation is pretty interesting. Japanese cars make up a small percentage of vehicles on the road. There are almost no Toyotas.Considering what the Japanese did to China in WW2 and Japan's recalcitrance in that regard it's not surprising. VWs are the most prevalent, followed by Hyundai's and then GMs. However, people have told me that Audis are what government officials drive. All of the Audis are new and black with limo tint, so I'm going to go ahead and assume that's the deal there. Most of the straight VWs are taxis, and the reason there are so many Hyundais is because they make up the lion share of the taxis. It seems like GM really has the private car market by the balls here. There are Buicks everywhere. What really bodes well for GM is that GM Shanghai manufactures a lot of vehicles under nameplates I'm not familiar with, so it's very feasible that they outnumber the VWs. You can tell the drivers really take pride in them too. Even old Centuries are freshly washed and shiny. Considering the thick smog the owners must be washing them a few times a week.
The bad: Interestingly enough the internet sucks here. You'd think Asia would be really high tech and the city would be blanketed in WiFi. WiFi is pretty rare and I'm almost thinking it's incompatible with my phone. The internet connection in the hotel is painfully slow as well. Things are inconvenient to get to and as always I picked a hotel that's in BFE. It's nowhere near a subway station. Of course, that's my fault and not Beijing's. Again, the language barrier is killer and it's difficult to pin who speaks English... unless they want money from you. Most of the people trying to sell you things speak English.
The place is huge. Like tremendous. It's mainly the sprawl that makes me say that. Not that there aren't big buildings, but it's just that they're not that aspect that really grabs you. It's more a matter of looking at the map and thinking something is right across the way and then it's a 30 minute cab ride. In most major cities in the US, it may take two hours, but if you keep walking for long enough you'll end up where you're going. That's not the case here.
The smog is just how people describe it. You can see about a half mile and then it sort of fades to gray. Very unfortunate because the city would probably be very beautiful otherwise. It doesn't have that much of a smell though.
Today I wandered around Jingshan park and a certain infamous square. The history in these places goes back centuries if not millenia. The age of the buildings etc is comparable to the places I saw when in Israel. However, it doesn't look old. If anything a lot of it feels almost touristy. My theory is that it's because the buildings are painted and re-painted due to Asian architecture's emphasis on color.
The language is like nothing else. When overhearing Spanish in Miami I can sort of figure out what people are saying. Maybe not word for word, but I can definitely get the gist vis-a-vi intonation and context. That's not the deal with Mandarin. The intonation is entirely different from Romance languages. When people are speaking you have absolutely NO idea what's going on. This caused quite a little issue immediately after arriving. When traveling around the States I can figure things out as I go along. There's not a lot of planning involved. One thing I neglected to do was to print out the address of the hotel in Mandarin, though I did write it down in English. Unfortunately despite the street signs being written in both scripts, it turned out the cab driver couldn't figure it out from the English name of the street. Luckily I wrote down the phone number as well, but we drove around for quite a while before figuring it out. Needless to say, before leaving the room today I took a piece of the hotel's stationary that has the address written in Chinese on the bottom.
You can tell the city is growing. There are cranes everywhere. When the cab took me through some areas with high rises the designs of the buildings were beyond innovative. Somehow though it doesn't feel new. The city feels almost dilapidated. It might have something to do with the smog.
Traffic is anarchy. Seriously. It makes Manhattan look like a quaint southern town. Walk signals mean nothing and in the battle of cars v pedestrians the cars take no prisoners. It's like people on foot just don't register. Cyclists must be insane. One of the things on my list was a bike tour of the city, but I decided against it.
The car situation is pretty interesting. Japanese cars make up a small percentage of vehicles on the road. There are almost no Toyotas.Considering what the Japanese did to China in WW2 and Japan's recalcitrance in that regard it's not surprising. VWs are the most prevalent, followed by Hyundai's and then GMs. However, people have told me that Audis are what government officials drive. All of the Audis are new and black with limo tint, so I'm going to go ahead and assume that's the deal there. Most of the straight VWs are taxis, and the reason there are so many Hyundais is because they make up the lion share of the taxis. It seems like GM really has the private car market by the balls here. There are Buicks everywhere. What really bodes well for GM is that GM Shanghai manufactures a lot of vehicles under nameplates I'm not familiar with, so it's very feasible that they outnumber the VWs. You can tell the drivers really take pride in them too. Even old Centuries are freshly washed and shiny. Considering the thick smog the owners must be washing them a few times a week.
The bad: Interestingly enough the internet sucks here. You'd think Asia would be really high tech and the city would be blanketed in WiFi. WiFi is pretty rare and I'm almost thinking it's incompatible with my phone. The internet connection in the hotel is painfully slow as well. Things are inconvenient to get to and as always I picked a hotel that's in BFE. It's nowhere near a subway station. Of course, that's my fault and not Beijing's. Again, the language barrier is killer and it's difficult to pin who speaks English... unless they want money from you. Most of the people trying to sell you things speak English.
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