I travelled to Beijing today for a (non-public, or I would have listed on the Events page) clean energy forum. I’ll respect the private nature of the forum, but I can give you a visitor’s impression of the northern capital.
The Good
1. Traffic. We didn’t brake once from the airport to our destination inside the second ring road. Where did everyone go?
2. Civility. The reception staff at the hotel let a women who tried to cut in line know, in a very polite way, that she was a boorish rube.
The Bad
Why at a new airport with 500 gates (three of which are in use) does China Air park its 747 from Shanghai on the tarmac a mile from the terminal and load its passengers on a bus to be discharged in some dank tunnel?
The Ugly
Ah the invirgorating, . . . cough, cough. . . refreshing. . . cough, cough . . . fall air of Beijing! Egad, I can barely read this post through my stinging eyes. Must be the haze.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Frank Rizzo // Oct 21, 2008 at 8:46 am
Welcome! It’s not pollution, it’s *fog*. That’s what I keep getting told…
2 chinacomment // Oct 22, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Re: Traffic.
Could This be why?
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2008-10/14/content_7103913.htm
~chinacomment.
3 cmcelwee // Oct 22, 2008 at 3:08 pm
CC: I’m sure the new restrictions have had some effect. When I left BJ last night traffic was heavy, and moving slowly, but it was moving. My ride in on Monday was different. It was almost like the roads had been cleared for a visiting dignitary, but my driver had run the roadblock. Eerily empty.
4 cmcelwee // Oct 22, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Thanks for the welcome Frank. Fog you say. It wasn’t like the fog I’m used to in San Francisco. But there I go again applying my Occidental notions to China; it must have been fog with Chinese characteristics.
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