This is the last day before the big celebration of the founding of the People’s Republic of China 60 years ago. And this is an especially round number as it means that the year of the foundation was also a Chinese Earth-Ox year just like this year. Each element-animal combination only re-occurs every 60 years.
Beijing is covered with volunteers in yellow sweat shirts to make sure the city is secure. It is mainly the elderly population. And they are always on the watch out during their shifts.
For the last rehearsal before the big event some roads and public transport was shut down from 3pm onwards. 87 of Beijing’s metropolitan bus lines were affected by that. Everybody had been informed that there might be problems to move around and you are definitely required to carry your passport with you as a foreigner at all times. Some other preparation measures were described in this article. And some really great pictures of preparations in different places in China is found here. Especially the pictures at the end are great.
Actually I had no issue getting to the spinning class by bike as I was not crossing the Changan Boulevard. The streets were much emptier than usual. I am looking forward to the celebrations tomorrow.