Hygiene
very poor, public toilets appalling (but the good thing is there are lots of them ) was in Bar 365 with Jerry few days ago and headed to go to toilet, there is none, this waiter guides me outside and down this dark dingy alleyway in the cold to these toilets. there is a single partition for standing up, the rest is just a trough on the floor against the wall were a line of men can crouch down and do their thing.
toilets ususally have such a strong stench, in more touristy places they can be clean but they dont seem to do anything about the smell. Only major exsception so far is the toilets at the Temple of Heaven I visited yesterday.

Spitting is very common, I have even seen a member of staff spit in an eating place.

these are very surprising because of all the forms you  have to fill for your medical symptoms as you enter the country, yet they dont tend to have soaps in toilets!

Taxis, lots of them. all two tonned, wide gold/mustard yellow stripe going all the way round the car covering the bumpers too, the secon tone can be anything, green, purple, white and maroon I have seen so far.

Buses very popular and cheap, I got an IC card that I can use on the subway too. buses sometimes charge as low as 0.4 Y dont know why yet.  you tend to swipe your card on entering or leaving the bus (not clear which one you ought to do).

subway does not seem to cover as much of area as would be useful, always 2Y and you swipe your card on entry to and leaving station.

station security, bags are scanned on entry, cant see the point.

Queues are irrlevent but there is no aggression (like I have seen in the UK in subways) and so is personal space, with the population being 1.3 billion in the country and 14 million in Beijing there is no such thing.

there are millions of food estabishments, street stalls, small eateries and restaurants.

less polite and organised and friendly than the japanese so far, however quite easy to start conversation with women in public places unlike DE.

distances are huge and so are the monuments to historical figuers and ideals.

Weather - this is the wrong time visiting, spring is much better, summer intlerable. I have to review my desire to visit the antarctica and the arctic poles, not doing too well with the cold ( or did I mention that before!)

Eating is something of a national passtime and they really enjoy it. The variety of food is amazing.

manners - it might be a linguistic thing but they will say something like: sit down there, put your luggage there, etc which intially feels abrupt. there is also a tendency to chatte about you (I think)while you are still standing there, like when you are asking questions about a hotel room the staff will be commenting!

there seems to be lots and lots of uniformed security guards everywhere including inside bookshops, aparantly there is high unemployment and therefore police and similar jobs are good places to divert the people to.

the historical places of interest are absolutely amazing, well maintained and reasonably priced too.