Hold your breath

I woke up at 4 a.m. to catch a flight to Beijing. I slept most of the way there and when I woke up, couldn't believe what was outside the plane window. Pea soup. A yellow-green haze that enveloped the metropolis below as far as I could see. The only clear piece of the sky was a singular blue line along the horizon, like the lid of a bubble. But somehow, the haze crept above that too.

I lived in Los Angeles, so I thought I knew what bad smog was. But the worst LA smog day doesn't come even close to what's in Beijing everyday. It's like living in fog everyday. Locals say when it gets really bad, you can't see buildings across the highway.

No wonder. Beijing's traffic is the worst in the country. It took me 40 minutes to get to a hotel that's maybe a mile away. Never thought I'd miss LA's freeways.