Shanghai7 across China 2008

Arrival in Beijing's new airport, Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City

Bus 5!

This is Mao's tomb.  Apparently we arrived on a holiday week so there was quite the queue to visit from the locals.  From what I have read, the government has been sponsoring "queue" days once a month for everyone to practice queuing up like Westerners.  All part of the general attempts to make manners more western - curbing swearing, spitting and the argy-bargy prior to the Olympics. 

Looking at the pictures here, I remember thinking at the time the air was pretty thick and smoggy but it is nothing compared to what we saw later in the trip - based on what we saw, it must have rained heavily the night before our arrival to clean the air so much...  Definitely a problem for them going forward.  This also was the only place outside of the Summer Palace that felt like there was anybody around - everyone on the bus was commenting by the end of the trip that we couldn't see the 1.3-1.6 Billion people - I'm not sure where they all are.  Lots of empty buildings - old and new...