The newest thing China is known for is its awful air quality. When it's bad it gets in western newspapers and everyone seems to be talking about how it affects this or that, whether one is leaving Beijing/china because of it or not (and some cities are better than Beijing). But Beijing does occasionally have insanely blue skies, stunningly blue skies. Unfortunately they are fairly rare - rare enough to really be news that hits the newspapers (though that is not the case).
Last week we did have some stunning blue skies and flaky clouds. We also had some excellent sunsets but city-standards (no comparing to a beach or mountain sunset of course). When Beijing is like that it is a wonderful city. I estimate the weather is depressingly bad about a third of the time, which is quite a lot, but it is not "all" the time. And you can manage around it. No city is perfect. It does not bother us as much as other people. We do use an air purifier when it is really bad; and we go out less - but we still go out, and we still have fun, and so far our health has been fine. Others seem to disagree, and are leaving because of it. If you have other reasons to leave, or if all things really are equal and this tips the scales over, then it might be time to leave. But we have reasons to stay in Beijing and are not, yet, close to a tipping point.
One of the oldest things China is known for, apart from the Great Wall I suppose, are its gardens, though they are certainly not gardens in the English sense. These are usually full of rock features, pagodas, water features, zig-zag bridges, and a variety of plants. There are not actually a lot of flowers, and not a lot of grass, usually. They are of course for a different purpose than those in England: not for play, that is for sure, and certainly born less out of love for agriculture. What they may have in common is a desire to show-off and create a place to relax, just in very different ways. Typically the areas around Shanghai are most famous for their gardens as they have an abundance of water, the right weather for growing a variety of plants, and (presumably) some cultural reasons as well.
China holds a domestic "Garden Expo" every two years: this year it is being held in Beijing so the local government has gone to the usual extremes: found a lot of land, built a new subway, recruited thousands of volunteers and built an insane Garden Expo. We went to visit it today - it is the opposite end of town so took a while to get there, and it was over 30 degrees. Despite a lack of shade though it was worthwhile. There were some incredible gardens: a lot of effort, very pretty, and also quite creative (there are over 40 different mini-gardens, some larger than others). It's a big area, and they have clearly put a lot of effort into it. In fact it is almost too impressive: one wanders what will happen after the Expo finishes in 6 months. I presume they won't just abandon it but it will take work to keep in good condition, as well as money, and though there are some nice walks there and alongside the neighboring river, I can't see a lot of people using the site for any purpose other than just visiting the gardens (and maybe taking wedding photos).
It's not great for a buggy as there are a fair amount of steps or paths made of broken stone; but we enjoyed the 5 hours or so we spent there, even in the heat.There has been a lot of thought into its design, so you can spend hours wandering around and exploring different paths, areas, and mini-gardens. Yet just as its scale and ambition is distinctly Chinese, so are some of the other aspects of it too: the waste of volunteers who mostly just stand there; the desire to pretend it is international which has led to creating a fake stately home with maze and random European huts (but not European gardens); the arbitrary nature of certain things like having a museum that closes 3 hours before the actual park does; and the overly commercial side to it (a lot of tacky gift shops in some of the buildings).
But on the whole China is getting much better nowadays with tourism: there are electric cars to transport people around, good signposts, maps, plenty of drinks available, good public transport, some ramps for the disabled and even some actual food options (not good food options, but more than just instant noodles and sausages). For those who have traveled in China this will all seem very familiar I am sure.Which leads me back to my earlier issue of what will happen once the Expo is over. Because that has been China's biggest flaw for previous temporary events: they build them so big that they are almost guaranteed to be white elephants. So I'll need to find out more about what happened to the previous 8 expos that were elsewhere in China, and come back to this one next year to see what it is like!
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