It was necessary for us to take a 6 hour plus flight from Singapore before the end of August, in order to retain Kim's frequent flyer status with Singapore Airlines. Alexandria (where I had been previously, but where Kim had not) , was the first choice, but there is no direct flight there from Singapore. The transit points we looked at (Dubai and Cairo) both involved flights at odd hours and lengthy stopovers - not at all conducive to a 7 day journey. So, Beijing was the next choice, an easy direct flight of 6 hours or so, done in daylight both ways.
Unfortunately, the weather was difficult. The whole of northern China was covered by heavy fog throughout our time there. This, coupled with pollution, significantly reduced visibility in Beijing, and we never saw blue sky for 7 days. The maximum temperature was in the low 30s (C) every day, and this, coupled with the fact that it was school holidays, meant sightseeing (almost always involvimg lots of walking) was very tiring, particularly as all sites were jammed with locals of all ages.
Beijing is a large city, with an official population of 11.5 million (plus 2 million unregistered residents). This makes it twice the size of Bangkok. It is much more modern than I thought it would be - vast western style shopping malls, innumerable modern office buildings (forests of building cranes), and wide roads (which become gridlocked at peak periods, being then almost as bad as Bangkok). The underground railway is a very useful means of getting around , being well signposted in English, but the trains have no A/C. Taxis are also easy to use, with care.
We made a mistake by choosing a hotel close to the Forbidden City and Tian'an men Square (on the wrong side as well), but not close to any restaurant area. This meant that every night we had to take the underground or a taxi (through gridlocks) to eat out. After a tiring day sightseeing, this was often not easy to do.
The range of eating, both Western and Chinese, is very wide, and not expensive (USD30 would cover a fine meal, and beer for both of us). The Chinese food encompasses minority cuisines not seen in Singapore - e.g. Shanxi, Guizhou, and Uighur - but we did not venture beyond Hakka and Sichuan, both being known to Kim and I. Even then, these cuisines contained adventurous dishes not seen in Singapore - Braised Bear, Mustard Duck Web, Baked Snake, and Dog Meat Hot Pot, to name a few. These were beyond our palates, but what we ate was good. ( I did try lily flower, which I had not had before). The main beers (Yanling, Beijing) are weak. In all as to food, I believe the old saying that Chinese will eat anything on four legs except the kitchen table, can be expanded to include a number of two legged things as well.
As noted above, sightseeing required some stamina. The four major sites - The Forbidden City, The Summer Palace, The Temple of Heaven Park, and Tian'an Men Square, took a day each (half a day or so to look, nearly half a day to recover !). The first
three of these are immense, particularly the Forbidden City. Having just seen important Christian and Muslim buildings in southern Spain, I thought that these building exteriors and interiors were not as impressive, being lightly decorated externally, and as to 
the interiors, dim and bare (the fact that one had to look over the heads of about 10 rows of people in front of one, at each viewing point, made it difficult to form views about interiors). More impressive, I thought, were the quaintly named gates, halls and palaces 
in each of these three places - Divine Military Genius Gate, Hall of Mental Cultivation, Hall of Multitudinous Fragrances, to name a few. A Starbucks in the middle of the Forbidden City was a bit jarring, and one imagines the last emperor, Pu Yi, spinning in his grave at the thought. Tian'an men Square is the largest public square in the world, covering about 90 football fields, and jammed with people throughout the day and night. Nearby to this is the Great Hall of the People, a vast but essentially lifeless series of rooms and halls (I briefly sat in Seat 33, Row W of the main assembly hall, and hope to be able to see this seat again on TV).
Shopping was good, including copy items available of what seemed to be every label known. We tried the well known "Silk Road", where I bought shirts of what was said to be Chinese silk, but might be treated plastic. Hard bargaining is essential - though 
I thought it a bit over the fence when a vendor offered me a silk shirt for USD350. When I countered with a bid of USD4, he immediately reduced his offer to USD6, and I bought the shirt for USD5. We bought an expensive silk carpet after major haggling, and then foolishly indicated the possibility of buying a second. When we failed to advance the second purchase and walked away, Kim was pursued by a lady assistant, eventually dragging her along, one of her arms around his waist, and the other hand furiously punching ever lower prices into her calculator, whilst shouting in Mandarin Kim remained unmoved, and we did not buy the second carpet.
We went out of Beijing only once - to the Great Wall and the nearby Ming Tombs at Badaling (about 50 kms away). We took an organised tour for this. Our intention had been to go to a further and less visited part of the Wall by our own taxi, but we did not do so, mainly because the thought of 
bargaining to buy a lunch at a roadside stall, fending off souvenir sellers, and making a difficult climb was a bit much. The organised tour saw us amongst an army of other tourists throughout the day. The Wall itself at Badaling is certainly impressive, and well worth the visit there. The 
nearby Ming tombs were not as impressive as other tombs I have seen. Lunch saw our bus amongst 51 others at an immense roadside restaurant. I counted 93 tables occupied when we went in, but despite this our enjoyable meal was served quickly and efficiently. Part of the tour saw a compulsory stop at a large herbal medicine establishment. A doctor saw us immediately. By simply feeling my pulse, he diagnosed that I was virtually at death's door, but then recommended a series of herbal preparations which, for only USD400, would stop the aforesaid door from opening. I declined his offer. Even Kim was ill - he has a weak liver, according to the doctor. He did not buy the herbs recommended for him, either.
After a very busy week we left. A final problem was that Kim and I tried to take out 5 cans of local beer (out of 6 we had bought) in our hand carry. At the security screening, we were told that Chinese beer cannot be taken out of China in hand carry, and so they were confiscated. I thought afterwards that I should have opened the cans before they were taken, but this may have caused the security people (who probably sold the cans later) to turn nasty. The last can came to Singapore in a suitcase.In all, Beijing is an interesting and inexpensive city to visit. Hotels, food, transportation all easy for a Westener to use. Good shopping, even if it is hard work. However, Beijing is not on my list of places to visit again.
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