Beijing is big, way big. It's big enough to make me wary of saying flashy and dramatic things about how much I love big cities.

Instead, like an overstuffed five-foot-high plush panda won at a seedy funfair, Beijing's girth makes me wonder whether it's just too big for me to get my arms around at all.

You see the scale the moment you step out of the confines of the arrivals hall at Beijing Zhan. Having spent a cozy night lulled asleep on the fastest set of rails in the country, travelling snug and warm in a heated sleeper carriage that's hurtling from Shanghai to the capital, arriving at the station is fairly intense.

Intense in an 'exiting the birth canal' kinda way.

I mean, babies never seem too happy about being squeezed out into the harsh light of day either. So it's a little like that. The enclosed, smelly-carpeted, safe-as-houses sleeper carriage pulls away, and all Beijing seems to open up before you.

Stuff here is BIG. Like joke big. Awfully big. Insanely huge.

It's the buildings, the squares, the size of the streets. A mere downtown block in this city could be measured in elephant strides. Sort of awesome and imposing and Not Fit For Human Consumption all at once.

People, their problems and their dramas, could get lost here. Many parts of Beijing loom up like the set of a made-for-TV sci-fi shocker where all humankind has been shrunk to proportions that are ant-like and insignificant.

This place is harder to 'love' than many other cities I've seen. It's a place that cuts strangers no slack. Finding public transport is hard. Getting on it is harder. Thinking of finding a cozy boho quarter to curl up in and forget about the world for a while? No chance!

And so we stay for a week, dancing with difficulty in this most impenetrable of places. And we wake up overlooking the slate grey curves of hutong roofs of our neighbourhood each morning. The sky above these homes is so pale in its white-greyness that it hurts the eye and the soul. Bare tree branches are silhoutted against the view, like something from an angry, lonely piece of artwork. Sometimes a solitary bird will wheel into view, but even this living creature doesn't ease the intensity of what I'm feeling.

I try looking away from the window instead.

Focus on practical tasks - subway, walking, food, phrasebook, tickets, juice, tea, hot water. Don't stare at the sky.

And then one morning, I see it. A fantastically pumpkin-coloured cat stalking along the tiled roofs. Like a firecracker going off in my head, its unexpected blast of cat-ness stays with me for the rest of the day.

I start to notice how much care goes into tiny things here. Like red characters on signs, marching across shop windows bold as art. Like babies swaddled in so many layers of brightly-coloured fabric they are virtually immobilised, only fat-happy face-cheeks poking out into the chill air. Like the curvaceous rounds of that tower of bamboo steamers holding a horde of soup-filled dumplings. Like hot red parkas and fake-fur hoods and mobile phone covers bright as sugary soft drinks.

Maybe it's conincidence. Maybe it's design. I don't know. But it makes me stop looking at the skyline, and makes me look harder at the everyday stuff I'm holding in my hands.

I remember why I like this place after all. I remember how great it feels to accomplish something here, even if the task is tiny. I remember tastes and smells, and I see new things and old things collide. And so, like a shy teenager with a crush, I scuff along the footpath, not really saying much, but just thinking about how glad I am to be right here right now.