I have been to Beijing when I was a child several years before the Beijing Olympics. It was one week travel with my parents.
There were a lot of heard complaints about Beijing back then as now: Air pollution and traffic would top most people's lists, and there's no question that neither of these is exactly pleasant. Others would also cite the city's inhuman scale and lack of walkability except in some quarters, its cold and dry winters, hot summers, and cruelly brief springs and autumns.
Apart from visiting the Great Wall & Forbidden Palace, the highlight must've been the pollution. I got so sick I spent the majority of my travel in the hotel room coughing up yellow/ green phlegm. Oh, the hotel beds were a highlight too. I'm sure if I slept on the ground it would've been softer.
So it’s not a pleasant personal experience for me, and I know things change a lot these years. Still I have so many must see places yet to visit. Tour guru recommend a cycling trip for 2 weeks, since the city is too big to be discovered in a short time. They say Beijingers top the list of Beijing's great attributes: They're smart, deeply funny, salty, proud, garrulous, cultured, warm and generous. It's a fabulous food city, with excellent restaurants at all price points and in virtually all cuisines. It's got a very lively music scene covering virtually all genres. It's also a very safe city, where women for the most part feel perfectly safe walking alone late at night.
I will definitely revisit Beijing one more time to renew my love and hate feelings for Beijing.
