For the past five days we experienced the biggest city on our journey yet: Beijing. And boy does it have a lot to offer.

I honestly didn't really know what to expect before we came here. Reports of unscrupulous destruction of old quarters to make place for new high-rise buildings, and images of anonymous residential blocks kept my expectations low. But of course, a city of 20 something million inhabitants has more to offer.

Our first hostel was situated in a lively street, in walking distance to Tiananmen square, with mostly lower buildings, and lots of little alleyways with even more little restaurants and shops, which all are loudly encouraging everyone passing by to try out their products, whatever that might be. Our friend Shuyan, who was invaluable in unlocking the city for us, tells us that a lot of the buildings are actually renovated to look old and quirky. We enjoyed the atmosphere nonetheless.

A different story is our current neighborhood, a changing residential area a few kilometres out of the centre. Here we are living close to several finished, but still uninhabited skyscrapers, while the house our Airbnb room is in, is a rugged down apartment block, but with intact social life in the courtyard. The calm scenery of five men sitting under a tree and playing cards seems just nearly too quiet for a city this bustling.

Then, there are parks, quite a lot of them, and very nice ones indeed. The parks we visited all served as gardens or ceremonial sites for emperors, or even host their summer palace. The public flocks into these parks, not just for strolling around, or for sightseeing, but also for fun and games. From Tai Chi lessons, paddling in boat over the water, to chess and card games, up to several types of communal dancing, the people of Beijing know how to use their greens.

Northeast of the centre we finally explored the central business district, with a more than 500 metre tall skyscraper dominating the scenery. Around it, the famous CCTV building, and several more fancy towers of steel and glass, and several more to come. Just around the corner, fancy shopping streets and even more fancy malls lure people with their unbelievable bling-bling. Here, Beijing boasts the most, and rightly so.