Ivan Kuznetsov

13:07 14 November, 2005 It probably means “yeild”

13:08 14 November, 2005 Park street in Beijing

13:19 14 November, 2005 Press a button and wait for the green light

13:26 14 November, 2005 In a garden

13:27 14 November, 2005 On a bridge

13:55 14 November, 2005 Revolution museum

14:33 14 November, 2005 Entrance to Forbidden City

14:33 14 November, 2005 Guard at the entrance to Forbidden City

14:42 14 November, 2005 Wall of the Forbidden City

14:56 14 November, 2005 Women carrying logs

First impression of Beijing were quite mixed. After passing passport control I grabbed a cab to go to the hotel. From the airport to the city goes quite nice motorway. It looked like it was a foggy morning, but it turned out to be just pollution. On the motorway all signs were dubbed in English. Taxi driver asked 400yuans for a trip to hotel. Interestingly enough, the same trip back was just 100yuan.

When motorway entered a city traffic became chaotic. Just later, walking in the city I realised how chaotic it is. Traffic lights, lanes, priorities do exist in theory, but in practice it is not safe to cross a street, even on the green light.

Guards, police and army are everywhere. I’ve never seen so many people in the uniform on the streets of a city before.

You can often see groupls of people in similar clothes doing exercises in the parks or outside the factory buildings.