China is huge, that I knew, but I wasn't quite prepared for my visit to Tiananmen Square.
A mere eight minutes or so on the excellent metro system and only two grid squares on my map away from my hotel.
But about an hour and half’s walk back.
And then when you get there, the scale of the square is quite simply staggering. It's bigger than Merry Hill and Birmingham city centre combined.
And then some.
This is a huge open space at the heart of this huge city, and is apparently the largest public square in the world.
At one end is the entrance to the Forbidden City with a large portrait of Chairman Mao hanging over the gate.
At the other end, erm, I couldn’t see the end never mind walk to it - although this could have ben down to the smog.
In-between was the Parliament building, Mao’s Mausoleum (closed for repairs until September), and various huge gate houses.
There was also a huge clock counting down the days, hours, minutes and seconds to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, just in case you forgot where the next games are to be held.
It was here where I met Sally and Lilly, two Chinese students who had just finished their English degrees.
Although both had recently passed, neither had got jobs and asked if they could talk to me to practice their English.
I thought why not, and off we went with the pair telling me about the various buildings we saw.
They then offered to take me to the downtown area of Beijing, which was a bit more close together, with shops, narrow streets, and tea houses.
After being taken around by so-called ‘guides’ in other parts of the world, I was fully expecting to be directed to their uncle’s tea shop where I would be plied with drinks and talked into buying a rug.
But this did not happen at all.
After wandering around a few shops, it was actually my idea to go to a tea shop.
Yes, we did go to a relative’s art shop, where I saw various pictures that had been painted onto silk.
One even featured a poem by Mao.
But there wasn’t much of a hard sell, just a polite inquiry about whether I fancied buying one – I declined and we were on our way again.
I learned a few more words of Chinese, and they got to practice their English before we parted after a couple of hours.
Maybe I am being slightly naive, but when it comes to ripping off the foreigner the Chinese haven’t got into it yet.
Even the postcard sellers in Tiananmen Square took no thanks for an answer first time around.
Maybe they are just so nice, or maybe it's down to all the different types of police and soldiers around who don’t want travellers molested.
On my stroll I noticed uniforms of dark green (army) light grey (civil guard) dark grey (police I think) and blue (police again I think).
There were also the extremely helpful crossing guards who wave a red flag to allow you to traverse some of the roads without risking your life too much – something which cannot be understated when you are crossing an eight lane carriageway and you are still unsure which way the traffic goes.
On my stroll, amid the army of VW Jettas and sundry Hyundais I also noticed a Porsche showroom and a Tiffany’s jewellery store.
It’s clear that some people in China must be doing pretty well out of the economic explosion here.