I took advantage of the sunny skies to do some urban hiking through the legation quarter, up through Tiananmen Square and back over to Wangfujing. Some random TGIF thoughts:
Today was a BLUE SKY day. We’re talking 蓝 freaking 天. First one of the Games and well timed too as track and field preliminaries kicked of today.
The square was busy with every available piece of shade filled with resting bodies. I’m not kidding. There was a row of people lined up squatting on the concrete in formation, perfectly aligned along the 6″ x 6′ shadow of the light post. Who says Beijingers don’t queue?
The visible security at the square didn’t appear out of the ordinary. The square always has its share of personnel, and today I didn’t feel like there was a huge increase in the security presence. Quite a few visitors though, and walking around I was treated to a cacophony of languages—Cantonese, German, Italian, Spanish, English, Japanese, Korean, and those were the ones I could identify from snatches of conversation, there were more to be sure.
No scam artists on Wangfujing!?!? Or maybe there were so many foreign visitors that they didn’t get around to me