We arrived at Beijing airport in a timely manner. Everything was as shiny and new as we would have expected from watching the Discovery Channel, and the place was huge. As we passed through immigration, we noticed a sign that said "Feel free to comment." We were moved through quite efficiently, and it was then that I noticed the buttons we would have pushed to comment. I did manage to push the smiley face for "satisfied" on the way back.
We met Beka's uncle and piled our stuff and ourselves into a taxi. Soon we were on part of Beijing's sixth ring road, which was also fairly new. Beka's uncle pointed out most of the buildings which were new as well. Pretty much the whole city is new. Later, we'd find out that "Old Beijing" was over by the Forbidden city.
We also discovered one of the ways Beijing was trying to control the pollution for the Olympics. Only cars with odd numbered license plate number endings were allowed to drive on odd days, and the opposite for even days. It made for an entertaining travel game for the rest of the trip. By the way, most of the people followed the rules. I thought I caught a perpetrator, but it turned out taxi cabs are exempt.
We commented on all the plants and trees we saw, since we never see that many in Seoul. It turns out those were new as well. It was causing issues with farmers, who couldn't get enough water for their crops. There was an article about it in the Beijing paper.
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