Beijing reminds me of a cityscape created with special effects for a movie or video game,” Post blogger Barbara Floria Orcutt on her journey through China. “The high-rise hotels and office buildings literally go for for miles in every direction from the geographic center point which is The Forbidden City. There’s not an American city that comes even close in terms of scale. To envision the size of the buildings here imagine a city block in New York on 57th street, but instead of 20 or 30 buildings per block as is the norm in Manhattan, there’s only one building, and there are hundreds of others the same size up and down the street. It’s unimaginably huge.

Fortunately, in contrast to these modern behemoths are human-scaled temples and  palaces dating from the 14th century or so that provide respite from the  future-shock of present-day Beijing. Our favorite so far is The Temple of Heaven  complex which sits in a well-tended park planted with ancient cypress trees. The  ornately painted blue tile-roofed structures were used by the Emperor, the son  of heaven, to perform rituals that would ensure good harvests and atonement for  the sins of the people. The Vault of Heaven, an octagonal temple with three  pagoda-like roofs that rise above a central hall is centered on an immense white  marble platform, that in some respects resembles the site and orientation of the  Taj Mahal.  Another human-scaled neighborhood known as Houhai surrounds a series of  interconnected lakes.  Here a warren of narrow lanes called  Hutongs are lined  with restaurants, bars and small specialty shops selling clothing, arts and  crafts, tea and sticky-sweet candy. Rickshaw drivers transport tourists from one  area to the next for exorbitant fees.  Despite the cheap buses and subways we’ve been taking taxis everywhere, which  are also inexpensive and a better bet for Allen with his cane. To wit: a 10-to  15-minute taxi ride costs about 60 cents.  So far we’ve struck out in the food department, most things we order have either  been way too hot, or tasteless, and the menus are a mystery. Yesterday we got  some suggestions from a young friend that we hope will improve our prospects.