Reflections of Beijing

• Very ordered, structured society and people
• Little evidence of any real poverty 
• Good variety between old Peking and new Beijing, steeped in history both ancient and modern
• Busy, so many people, very young especially on metro, and very friendly
• Easy to navigate metro, clean, tidy and very safe and felt very safe in city including walking around at night 
• Very few westerners - got stared at quite a lot through curious eyes! 
• In the main very cheap, metro single ticket 2¥ (20p), beer 5¥ (50p), meal for two 100¥ (£10) 
• High rise flats every where with lots of new ones going up - this city of 20 million people is still growing fast
• A real mix of ordered controlled society with increasingly affluent side getting richer through commerce.  Most cars new and a lot European (Audi and BMW's).  Definitely the new world power in the next few years with all these people in their late teens/early twenties
• Managed three key words in Mandarin - ' ni hao' (hello), 'xie xie ni' (thank you), 'xie san' (goodbye)!