Back from China

For a plane ride that was billed as taking -3.5 hours, it sure seemed longer. But, I am back home again, and mostly caught up on sleep. On my last night in Beijing, I walked with a group down the main boulevard the hotel was on. This was the embassy district, a few miles away from the Forbidden City. It was a warm Friday evening. Within a mile or so we passed three MacDonalds, along with just as many Pizza Huts (a hot date destination according to my Chinese colleague) and Starbucks. The sidewalks were well populated, but not too crowded, and the variety of faces and nationalities wasn't much different than you would see in a lot of big cities. Lots of buildings had some kind of colorful decoration. I was expecting to see a sea of bicycles before getting here, and there were plenty; however, they were outnumbered by cars. There were very wide bike lanes, though, with their own traffic lights, and the car drivers gave them a wide berth. That day it had cleared up again so you could see the mountains in the distance from my 20th floor hotel room. Still, it looked like a smoggy day in LA in general, and I am glad to be back in a place where I don't have to rinse my toothbrush with bottled water. On the way back to the airport, it was amazing to see all the beautification effort underway -- tree planting and so on mostly. They're very serious about putting on a good face for the upcoming Olympics, and they surely will. I feel sure the commentators will spend a lot of time talking about what a clean, modern, friendly, and efficient city Beijing is.