travel42 Port Guide: Beijing

travel42 Professional Cruise Port of Call Review

The famous portrait of Mao Zedong still looks out over Beijing as though he's guarding communist austerity and discipline. But the Beijing he stares out upon is hardly the city he left behind.

Change is everywhere—in the clothes (you could wear them to the office in any cosmopolitan city); in the increasingly paralyzing traffic (more and more foreign- and Chinese-made automobiles jam the streets); in the electronics (smartphones, smartphones, smartphones); and in the construction (high-rises,...