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.
The city has recognized the attractions of the old neighborhoods, especially in Dongcheng, where signs in Pinyin - Romanized Chinese - identify every hutong to help foreigners find their way.
Instead of leveling old neighborhoods and forcing long-timers out, the Dongcheng District renovated Nanchizi Hutong, centered on the graceful Pudu Temple at the southeastern corner of the Forbidden City. When the dust settled, residents were moved back to upgraded quarters with tap water, toilets and broadband cable.
Grass-roots private enterprise has given new life to the alleyways leading off Nanluogu Street on the western side of Dongcheng, the hub of one of the city's most popular hutong neighborhoods. The government repaved the street and still maintains such historic sites as the siheyuan home of the Communist Revolution-era writer Mao Dun, but the restaurants, cafes and shops reflect the recent capitalist recharging of Beijing.
I found accommodations at Guxiang 20, a stylish new inn on Nanluogu Street that has a rooftop tennis court and canopy beds.
I favored Xiao Xin's Cafe a few blocks south for coffee and Wi-Fi and wandered every day to the Drum and Bell Towers, which kept the time in old Beijing. The National Art Museum of China, with its stunning collection of contemporary Chinese art and a wing devoted to intricately crafted shadow puppets, and Jingshan Park, an old imperial garden overlooking the northern gate of the Forbidden City, are also nearby.
Chaoyang
If you ask foreigners working in Beijing where they live, they likely will say Chaoyang on the eastern side of the city. The district's contemporary look and conveniences have made it attractive to embassies, multinational corporations, shopping mall developers and most of Beijing's big chain hotels.
It's decidedly too far to walk to the Forbidden City from Chaoyang. But when a new light rail line opens next year, the district will become one of the city's major transportation hubs, offering connections to the Forbidden City and the Olympic Green.
I settled into a room at the Poly Plaza Hotel (technically in Dongcheng but closer to the major sights of Chaoyang) to explore New China in Chaoyang.
The 15-year-old Poly Plaza occupies one of two shirt box-shaped towers on either side of a theater where I heard the China Philharmonic Orchestra perform one evening. Its state-owned art museum, displaying a distinguished collection of perfectly preserved classical Chinese paintings and sculptures, recently moved to the new Poly Plaza office tower diagonally across the ring road from the hotel.
Later, I found myself at the threshold of the upscale Ginza Mall and the Dongzhimen intersection, a vast construction site where the light rail station and office complexes are rising on three of its four corners.
It was an easy walk east from there to Workers Stadium, the true heart of the district. The stadium was built in 1959 and is being renovated for Olympic soccer in 2008.
On a long walk west to the Lama Temple, one of nine religious sites in the capital where Tibetan Buddhists once worshiped, I followed Dongzhimen Beizhong Street through a neighborhood where the restaurant menus were filled with caviar, blinis and vodka. I understood why when the road dead-ended at the Russian Embassy.
Another day, I headed south from Workers Stadium to 700-year-old Dongyue Temple, now Beijing's Folk Arts Museum, and lovely Ritan Park, formerly the Temple of the Sun. It's a popular place for strolling at night and drinking at the Stone Boat Bar, permanently moored on a pond blanketed with lily pads.
The West End
The West End is home to Peking and Tsinghua universities, the Harvard and Yale of China, as well the Old and New Summer Palaces, Incense Burner Peak, Big Bell Temple and Zhongguancun, Beijing's riotous electronics market.
The Olympic Green is a 15-minute cab ride away, and a light rail line, soon to be joined by two new subways, runs through the district, providing relatively easy access to central Beijing. But I often had a hard time dislodging myself from Haidian. It's airier than downtown and, on a clear day, the western mountains seem close enough to touch.
Haidian's high-energy heart is the area around Wudaokou Station, which has a half-finished look, more like Tijuana, Mexico, than Cambridge, Mass., lined with student-friendly cafes, movie theaters and high-rise apartment buildings. Korean restaurants predominate, although few people can resist the congee shop on Chengfu Road, where they grab a Chinese porridge for breakfast, served with their choice of sweet or savory toppings.
Chengfu Road dead-ends to the west at the gates of Peking University, known to students as "Beida" and founded in 1898 by Qing Dynasty Emperor Guangxu. It was part of ill-fated reforms that were cut short when a coup d'etat elevated the ultraconservative Dowager Empress Cixi, who ruled China from behind the scenes until her death in 1908. But the university endured, breeding scholars, artists and dissidents, and in 1952 moved from its original site on the eastern side of Beijing to parklands near the Summer Palace.
The campus is one of the loveliest places in the capital, hushed by serious scholarship and verdant with trees labeled in the nomenclature of Linnaeus. Most buildings are decorated with the carved beams and painted rafters of Ming Dynasty architecture.
To the north, a canal separates Beida from the ruins of Yuanmingyuan, often called the Old Summer Palace, built in the 18th century. Compared with the nearby New Summer Palace, started a few decades later, it is a neglected treasure but nonetheless precious for the history that whispers around it.
The first Europeans who saw Yuanmingyuan's interconnected gardens and pavilions, set on a system of man-made rivers, were so astounded by its splendors that they called it the "Versailles of the East." But when the great powers of the 19th century began carving up China, first by treaty and then by force, Yuanmingyuan was sacked and burned.
French author Victor Hugo wrote in an 1861 letter that the Old Summer Palace was destroyed by two bandits: England and France.
One weekend, I went to the Xizhimen district south of Haidian. I got a good rate - about $175 a night, including a buffet breakfast - at the Beijing Shangri-La (it's part of a Hong Kong-based hotel chain).
My beautiful, king-bedded double overlooked the Third Ring Road, the old CCTV tower, the Beijing Zoo with its sleepy pandas and rare snub-nosed monkeys, Purple Bamboo Park, Wutai Temple and Capital Indoor Stadium, sprucing up to stage Olympic volleyball.
In pretty Purple Bamboo Park, I joined old folks in their regular weekend sing-along, imagining what they had seen during their long lives in China.
Down the hill by a lake, kids were eating Popsicles and chasing butterflies, and I wondered what they would see in China's future.
Susan Spano writes for the Los Angeles Times.
IF YOU GO
Getting There
Continental Airlines offers connecting flights from BWI Marshall Airport to Beijing, starting at about $1,071. Rate restrictions may apply.
Phoning China
To call the numbers below from the United States, dial 011 (the international dialing code), 86 (country code for China) and the local number.
Lodging
Home Inn
-- A2 Xinzhong St., Chaoyang, 10-5120-3288, homeinns.com. Home Inn is a modest but clean budget-chain hotel; doubles start at about $30.
Poly Plaza Hotel
-- 14 Dongzhimen Nandajie, Dongcheng, 10-6500-1188, polyhotel.com. This hotel is actually closer to some of the main sites of Chaoyang. It's a modern high-rise hotel with 292 rooms. Doubles start about $250.
Beijing Haoyuan Hotel
-- 53 Sijia Hutong, Deng Shi East, Dongcheng, 10-6512-5557, haoyuanhotel.com. This 19-room hotel set around Qing Dynasty courtyards is run by the All-China Women's Federation; doubles start at about $80.
Beijing Sihe Hotel
-- 5 Den Cao Hutong, Dongsi South Street, Dongcheng, 10-5169-3555. The Beijing Sihe Hotel has 12 rooms in a Qing Dynasty courtyard residence; doubles about $80, with breakfast.
Days Inn
-- 1 Nanwanzi Bystreet, Nanheyan Street, Dongcheng, 10-6512-7788, daysinn.com. New and beautifully located, the Days Inn is near the Forbidden City. From $51.
Guxiang 20
-- 20 S. Luoguxiang, Dongcheng, 10-6400-5566, guxiang20.com. Guxiang 20 is a small, stylish hotel that opened this year on one of Beijing's most accommodating hutongs; doubles from $120.
Hotel Kapok
-- 16 Donghuamen St., Dongcheng, 10-6525-9988, hotelkapok.com. Hotel Kapok is a new, Western-style boutique hotel steps from the Forbidden City, designed by celebrated Chinese architect Zhu Pei; doubles start at $65 and vary according to season.
Fragrant Hill Hotel
-- Fragrant Hill, West End, 10-6259-1166. Designed by I.M. Pei in 1982, the hotel is set beside idyllic Incense Burner Peak in the hills on the extreme western side of Beijing; doubles from about $80.
Shangri-La Hotel
-- 29 Zizhuyuan Road, West End, 10-6841-2211, shangri-la.com. A luxury high-rise hotel near the Beijing Zoo; doubles start about $185.
Dining
Alameda
-- Nali Mall, Sanlitun North Street, Chaoyang, 10-6417-8084. Serves tapas and Brazilian-inspired cuisine; dinner from $21 per person.
Da Dong Roast Duck Restaurant
-- 3 Tuanjiehu Beikou, Chaoyang,10-6582-2892. Famous for its super-lean Peking duck; about $20 per person.
Green T. House
-- 6 Gongixilu, Chaoyang, 10-6552-8311. Restaurant has a creative Asian fusion menu and dreamy contemporary decor; three courses about $50.
Courtyard
-- 95 Donghuamen Ave., Dongcheng, 10-6526-8883, courtyard beijing.com. An elegant restaurant on the moat beside the Forbidden City with a chef trained at the Culinary Institute of America; three-course dinner about $50.
Mirch Masala
-- 62 Nanluogu Xiang, Dongcheng, 10-6406-4347. Excellent Indian in a hutong; dinner about $10.
Makkane
-- Jeong Seong Rae, West End, 10-8238-7070. An excellent Korean restaurant near Wudaokou station in Haidian; dinner at about $10-15.
Isshin
-- 35 Chengfu Lu, West End, 10-8261-0136. Popular for sushi. Also near Wudaokou station in Haidian; dinner about $10-15.
Activities
Beijing Hikers
-- 139-100-25516, www.beijinghikers.com, is a convivial group that welcomes visitors. Hikes around the city leave from the Holiday Inn Lido in northeastern Beijing every weekend morning. They cost about $25, including bus transportation, snacks and a guide.
Chinese Culture Club
-- Kent Center, 29 Anjialou, Liangmaqiao Road, Chaoyang; 10-6432-1041, chinesecultureclub.org. Club has a range of programs in and around Beijing.
Cycle China
-- 12 Jinshan East St., 10-8402-4147. Rents bikes and offers guided tours.
Mountain Yoga
-- 10-6259-6702, mountainyoga.cn. Offers yoga retreats at its Fragrant Hills center and at a tepee encampment near the Great Wall; two-night stay, with meals, instruction and transportation, about $125.
Information
China National Tourist Office; (818) 545-7507, cnto.org
[ LOS ANGELES TIMES]