As early as the 1920s, guidebook writers complained that as quickly as they could write about one of Beijing's historic buildings, it was pulled down.
Today we face the same problem with bars, clubs, and restaurants, whose lifetimes seem even shorter than the Chinese government's swiftness to suppress dissent. Whole streets and city blocks are often bludgeoned into oblivion almost overnight. Similarly, new neighborhoods are being set up as quickly as they are torn down. Once-barren areas north of the city have been transformed with the ultra-modern athletic stadiums of Olympic Green and Olympic Forest Park.
The choices of what to do and see in a city already packed with pleasures increase all the time. This chapter deals with everything you need to know to get yourself around Beijing, a city better supplied with taxis and public transport than almost any counterpart in Europe. Beijing's layout is simple, and navigation is mainly by landmark. The only confusion lies in the fact that any landmark may well be razed by the time you reach the city, taking two or three of our favorite restaurants with it.
