The Far East: Day 5

Until you see it, it's difficult to believe, let alone comprehend, the sheer size of everything in Beijing. I stepped out of the subway at Tian'anmen West onto a road with at least 12 lanes - in the heart of the city centre. Compared to the Champs-Elysées, this is huge.

But that's nothing compared to the architecture. The National Centre for the Performing Arts has to be seen to be believed: it's basically half of a huge eggshell, made of metal, though a huge bead of mercury might be a more accurate description. It looks even weirder when seen including the reflection in the pool that completely surrounds it - it appears that access is from underneath, so there are no drawbridges.

A short walk away is the infamous Tian'anmen Square, with the Great Hall of the People to the west, the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall to the south, the National Museum of China to the east, the Gate of Heavenly Peace leading to the Forbidden City (of which more later) to the north, and the Monument to the People's Heroes in the centre. It's not nearly as imposing as it sounds - largely because the square itself is so huge, and even the biggest and most important buildings in China seem... small and distant.

The square is nothing like, say, Trafalgar Square; one, its size is in a totally different league; two, it has airport-style security scanners at every entrance, with police aiming to thwart any protests before they even start. Most of all, though, it's much more open, and has very little shade.

Which is a bit annoying when you arrive at Tian'anmen Square at about noon on a very hot, sunny, clear-skied June day, when the temperature is about 33 Celsius. Thankfully, the thunderstorm had at least brought the humidity down from the horrible levels it was at on Sunday.

The Square itself is, like the rest of Beijing, perfectly flat and level. It's a truly incredible place, but the soul of the place is in its history rather than its architecture.

Afterwards, I sat in a shady spot under some trees a short walk away to recover from the sun, which, even with suncream, was pretty strong. I'd bought a sandwich in Subway on the way to the subway in the morning, and surprisingly my bag managed to keep the sandwich relatively cool.

At about 1pm, I headed through the Gate of Heavenly Peace - which has the famous portrait of Chairman Mao in the middle - leading, through a seemingly interminable series of similar gates, to the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City was the Emperor's residence and workplace for 500 years in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, until in 1911 the imperial rulers were overthrown by the Kuomintang (the ruling party of the Republic of China).

The architecture is incredibly intricate, and the attention to detail - such as the animals on the corners of the roofs - is mindblowing. That said, after a couple of hours it does get a bit monotonous, with hall after hall wearing a bit thin after a while. 

However, the real treat of the day was the Imperial Garden. There are over 160 pine and cypress trees in the garden, most between 300 and 400 years old. Most of them have very knotted and gnarled bark, making for some very weird shapes. There are a variety of stone sculptures dotted around, and while the garden is fairly small it doesn't feel it, as it's packed with really interesting things to look at. It's the kind of thing my mum, who's an artist, would enjoy no end; what surprised me is that I enjoyed the garden no end too, which I wasn't expecting.

I used the Beijing Subway to get from Sanyuanqiao (where my cousin lives) to Tian'anmen, and was pretty impressed. The system underwent huge expansion for the Olympics in 2008, and now consists of six full lines and a couple more short branches, with plans for half a dozen more. I took line 10 to Goumao, and then line 1 to Tian'anmen West, and the reverse on the way back. 

It's quite reminiscent of the newer lines on the Paris métro, with doors along the platform edge which open when the train arrives, preventing people accidentally falling onto the track (as on the Jubilee line extension in London). Some of the lines also have gangways between the carriages; even better, some have windows into the driver's cab, so you can see forward into the tunnel. 

They also all have very intuitive diagrams of the line, with flashing lights to indicate where on the line you are, what direction you're going, and which station is next: it's a genuinely useful innovation, one I wish London might copy.

The really good thing, though, about the Beijing subway is that it's air-conditioned. Unlike the London Underground, which is so old and the tunnels so small that air conditioning is impossible, the Beijing subway has generously-sized tunnels, so the trains can be big enough so that you can have headroom *and* air conditioning.

The headroom, in particular, was very welcome given how busy it was. Even at 11am the subway was standing-room only, and coming back at 4:30pm it was pretty much breathing-room only. It wasn't as bad as the Northern Line in the morning peak between London Bridge and Bank, at least, but it wasn't massively pleasant.

Dinner was a relatively subdued affair: pizza while watching the World Cup (Netherlands vs Denmark) on the big screen in the plaza below the apartment was just what I (and Catherine and Martyn!) needed after a long day, and I slept very well, ready for an even hotter Tuesday.