Don't Forget: Big Changes Afoot Beginning Sunday for APEC

Don’t forget: the great big mess that is to be created as Beijing plays host to the APEC meeting begins this weekend – Sunday is a work/school day for government offices and public schools, Monday odds/evens traffic restrictions begin, and later in the week schools and non-essential government services go on an enforced six-day holiday.

While the odds-and-evens gig will relieve a lot of run-of-the-mill jams due to traffic volume reduction, expect major delays anyhow as half the leaders of the world and their entourages will be cruising around Beijing. That means ordinary plebians like you and me will be stuck behind endless roadblocks so the bigwigs can get where they need to go, pronto (well, at least you might be able to catch a glimpse of a cool motorcycle escort while stuck).

Public transport should be its usual nightmare as half the drivers of this town try to squeeze on the already overcrowded subways, so if you're a commuter, show up to the station early as they may be constricting entry during rush hour.

Also expect non-essential government services to be severely restricted for the duration, so if you're needing a visa extension or something or other, you're shit out of luck until mid-month.

The good news is that the air is gonna be awesome beginning next week as the Ministry of Pollution Generation is shutting down everything so the fancypants foreign politicians in town will bring messages of blue skies back to their peoples.

The bad news is the air will absolutely suck for today and the rest of the weekend, as factories will be on double-time with the pollution controls set on 0 for the next 72 hours to output as much as they can before they shut down for the meeting.

Some other things to expect:

• Don't go near the Olympic Park, where some of the APEC meetings will be held (the rest happen in Huairou, which might as well be Siberia). Most of the Olympic Park will be completely closed to the public from Nov. 1-10 and traffic will be restricted in those areas. Subway stations at the Olympic Park will be closed; trains will pass through those stations but will not stop.
• Expect your courier services to be slower: From Nov 3-10, three-wheeled bikes, motorbikes and other delivery vehicles will be banned from use anywhere within the 6th Ring.
• Tourist attractions and finer restaurants might be booked solid; group activies may be cancelled or shut down (not that they will have been given the permission to go ahead in the first place anyhow).

Also recall that to make up for the six-day layoff, everyone who gets that time off will be forced to shift to another of those insanely unproductive work weekends. Luckily this is only mandatory for government offices and schools, so the rest of us can work normal weeks and ingore this ugly inconvenience.

Here's a handy calendar for November; looks like things should be getting back to normal by mid-month.