BEIJING -- A friend planning a trip to Beijing opened a map, pointed to a hotel and said, "I should be able to walk from there to the Forbidden City easily, right?"
Not easily.
In preparation for the Olympics, which begin Aug. 8 and are expected to draw half a million spectators from abroad and 4 billion TV viewers worldwide, the government has gone on a $40 billion building spree to make these the best Games ever and to turn this into a colossal coming-of-age party for a world-class capital.
Construction has left some districts haphazard and rough-edged, but other neighborhoods are so ritzy and well-groomed that they could be mistaken for Beverly Hills.
Tourists who come here for a few days to see the Summer Palaces and Ming Tombs are bound to notice these developments.
But one thing about Beijing hasn't changed in recent years. It is humongous, sprawling in every direction from the Forbidden City. Six ring roads, not the two of a decade ago, make concentric circles around the Imperial Palace, maintaining the symmetrical layout of the Jin Dynasty capital, founded almost 900 years ago.
Maps don't convey the city's size, which together with traffic and construction makes walking hard and even unpleasant at times.
The best way to reach such far-flung attractions as the Beijing Zoo and Lama Temple is by taxi or subway, a frustration for people who like to explore on foot.
But there are some districts where travelers can wander freely. My favorites were Dongcheng, Chaoyang and Haidian.
Dongcheng
Dongcheng, on the northern and eastern sides of the Forbidden City, is best known for Wangfujing, Beijing's main shopping street. Foreign visitors are more likely to be drawn to Dongcheng's old-fashioned narrow-alley hutong neighborhoods, where people go about daily life.
Wandering through the hutongs, which flow in a tangle toward big streets like streams trickling toward rivers, is one of the principal pleasures of visiting Beijing. They are lined with trees, tiny shops and low-rise courtyard residences, or siheyuans, built exclusively of gray brick during the Yuan, Qing and Ming dynasties.
Some siheyuan houses were large and luxurious, built by aristocrats, highly placed officials and well-to-do merchants who lived there with their families for generations. After the protracted revolution that brought the Communists to power in 1949, many siheyuans were divided into densely packed, multifamily dwellings without private toilets, central heating or running water.
