I just got back to Beijing after two months away, and I feel as though I've entered a parallel universe. I'm totally jet-lagged, after a night up with three jet-lagged children who awoke for three hours each in turn. So my observations are not profound.
I want to tell you about the baggage handlers at Beijing airport. My summer in the UK involved three Heathrow experiences, once on arrival and twice going to meet arrivals. Each time it took passengers close to two hours from landing to emergence into the arrivals hall – that's brutal after a ten hour flight. Here, the luggage was pirouetting elegantly around the carousel by the time we made our way through immigration. Beijing airport will be preening grandly in time for the Olympics, but Heathrow seems to be staggering towards an Olympic humiliation.
Anyway, we stood there, gaping wearily at all this glorious luggage circulating hypnotically in front of us, until it slowly dawned on us that we were the only ones still waiting, and the carousel was bare. It wasn't Beijing airport's fault – either BA or Heathrow handlers had failed to put our luggage on the flight, and it was stuck in London…. Beijing airport efficiently noted down the problem and delivered our errant luggage the next day.
But – and there always has to be a but – Beijing airport is somewhat soulless. And the intimidating mural of the Great Wall in the immigration hall probably should go before the Olympics, since this fortification was built with the express aim of keeping foreigners out.
Finally, I should record on the Smog Blog that today has been a genuinely blue sky day in Beijing, complete with bright white wispy clouds. Suddenly it's as though the city's been repainted in colour.