some observations

1. The Chinese phrase "Ren shan, ren hai" meaning "mountains and seas of people" is completely applicable. I don't think I've ever seen so many people in my life. Tiananmen and outside of the Forbidden City was just a mass of people. It's almost indescribable. Try and think of the most crowded place you've ever been and multiply by 4 or 5.
2. The Beijing subway - most of it new for the Olympics - is ridiculous. First, in the subway tunnels they have screens of some sort that flash advertisements as you go down the tunnel, and you see the advertisements lit up in the subway's windows. Also, the subway has digital tv's, and had a light-up map with tiny lights that lit up to show you where you were and where you were going within the subway line.
3. The parts of Beijing that I have seen have giant bike lanes on either sides of the street - blocked off from the main street by grass and plants. I think its pretty awesome that they planned for the bike lanes.
4. Most Chinese people don't try to hide their curiosity of others like we do in America. While at Tiananmen and in the Forbidden City our group had more than a few Chinese people come up to us and stare, like, "what are they going to do next?"
5. The exchange rate is awesome.
6. The Forbidden City is massive and really amazing. You could do day trips there for a week or two and not see it all. Its definitely worth the time.
7. I don't want to be pessimistic, but I foresee problems during the Olympics. First of all, Westerners are not used to being stared/gawked at, and it probably won't make them too happy. Second of all, the language and the characters - more than difficult. Even though they have tried to put labels in Chinese characters and in pinyin, there are going to be some very confused and lost people. We got lost-ish trying to find the bus stop and we have four people who speak varying levels of Chinese.


When I have my camera cord I will add pictures that I took from this trip :)