Update: Today's Beijing News includes an article with more details on the new 'D' trains. They'll begin service on Dec 21 and will also be available on the Beijing-Hangzhou line - cutting the time needed to get to the home of the West Lake to 11 hours and 20 min. Keep reading below for the full schedule. The price remains an unconfirmed "over RMB 500."

Rumors that Beijing was going to introduce a cap on car registration or sales have been quashed with an announcement on Wednesday that the city government would do no such thing. Despite the director of Beijing's Transport Department, Liu Xiaoming revealing that the government was seriously considering putting a limit on the number of vehicle registrations at a recent high-level transport conference, the Beijing Municipal Commission of Development and Reform (BMCDR) unequivocally announced at a press conference on Wednesday that no such measures would be introduced. The deputy head and spokesman of the commission justified the decision not to impose a limit on the grounds of a need to maintain the long-term development of the country's auto industry and sustain general economic growth.

It’s an autumn tradition for a large portion of Beijing’s population to head to the western hills in order to take in the beauty of the changing color of the foilage, scale the heights in high heels and pose for a few pics with some red leaves. The number of people who swarm to Badachu, Xiang Shan and the Botanic Gardens area normally turns people’s plans of enjoying a picnic in the picturesque surroundings into a chaotic struggle to emerge from the crowds on the roads.

Dashuifa (The Grand Waterworks), part of the ruins of the Xiyang Lou (Western Pavilions) complex located inside Yuanming Yuan (The Garden of Perfect Brightness or Old Summer Palace) is no longer accessible to tourists. Park authorities decided to restrict entry to the site after years of abuse from visitors to the patriotically charged national ruin. A security line has been set up to protect the site from further damage – which mainly consists of people carving their names into the stone. Tourists can no longer get up close and personal with one of the recognizable sites of what is often presented as a symbol of China's past humiliation at the hands of foreign powers.

A new web platform, the result of 3 years of cooperation between IBM and the Palace Museum, allows visitors to enter into an interactive online version of Beijing’s Forbidden City. Similar to Second Life, once you’ve downloaded the program, you can choose your avatar (choices include Princess, Concubine and even Eunuch) and explore the grounds of the former Imperial Palace (in English or Chinese) and with or without the help of a tour guide. You’re also able to chat with other visitors (as of Monday afternoon there were 700+ registered users on the English version and 70,000+ unregistered guests) and take part in some simple games like Go Cricket Fighting and Archery - which we found particularly fun.

New traffic measures that will see up to 800,000 cars taken off Beijing’s road every working day, come into effect today.  All cars with license plates ending with either a 1 or 6 are not permitted to be driven within the Fifth Ring Road between 6am to 9pm this evening. Announced in late September, see our earlier post here, the plan is to have cars with number plates ending with certain digits banned from the roads within the Fifth Ring Road one day a week. In the past few days Beijing authorities have released more detailed information about the plan:

It's a great day for exploring the hills to the west of Beijing. Not only will you be able to glimpse rare views of the city - on a clear day you can make out the new CCTV headquarters and the China World Trade Center tower in the far distance - but you can also visit some of the many temples in the area. Fahai Temple (Fahai Si) is one of the best-known, largely due to the quality of the murals that were painted on its walls back in the Ming Dynasty. The temple only recently opened its gates to the public again after two years of large scale renovation work, part of a more general effort by the city government to restore Beijing's temples. To better protect the original murals from being harmed, eight of them were painstakingly duplicated and are now exhibited in different halls throughout the temple. However, as of late September, the originals are also now open to the public - but at a price - you'll have to pay an extra 100 kuai to see the original frescos.

Those who took advantage of the seven-day break to escape the capital will be pleased to know that they also managed to avoid the crowds. As anyone who remained in town can affirm, Beijing witnessed a huge influx of domestic tourists over the Golden Week. According to the Beijing Tourism Administration (BTA) 8.02 million people visited Beijing’s major tourists sites between Sep 29 and Oct 5. Of this number, 2.35 million visitors were from out of town. Xinhua reports that the hordes spent more than 5.25 billion yuan (USD 767 million), up 27% on last year. The number of visitors no doubt came as a relief for hotels and other tourist-dependent industries, as, due to the influence of the Olympics, the number of visitors to the capital has been down in the first 8 months of the year. According to AFP:

Help Line at Capital Airport
Those flying out of town for the holidays but not sure which terminal their flight is leaving from, can call the new Capital Airport Hotline for help. By calling 6454 1100 you can get all the information you need about flights passing through all three of the airport's terminals in both Chinese and English. Airport authorities are expecting over 1 million passengers to pass through the airport during the 7-day holiday period.

With the “Olympic Period” now officially over, things in the capital are slowly starting to return to normal. Traffic is stalled on the second ring road, people are once again forgoing any semblance of a social life choosing instead to return to the warm embrace of badly dubbed bootleg DVDs and of sleepless nights in front of episode after episode of their favorite American TV series and more jianbing sellers, bike repairmen and slops collectors are starting to appear on the streets. Although the Olympics has left us with more bilingual signs, greater wheelchair access and some great new subway lines, doubts remain over whether the visa situation will return to it’s pre-games state. We contacted Nadine Ulrich, who maintains the super useful  FXZL site, earlier today and asked her what recent reports about a loosening of restrictions for getting L visas might mean for other categories of visa. We’ve included her response below: