The people of Beijing just can't wait to loosen their corsets, have a good scratch and relax after the most epic month in their sporting history. They will soon be able to drop those smiles that have been fixed in place for the past month or so and put their feet up while they gather themselves together for the not-quite-so-overwhelming arrival of the paralympic athletes.

We wonder what on earth the Chinese have made of it all. Although the new China is a giant cultural and sporting sponge soaking up everything they can get from the outside world, so many of the things that they have been forced to confront during these Games is clearly a mystery. You only have to take a train ride, as I did, into inner China to discover that blue eyes and pale skin are a rare sight for tens of millions of Chinese people; children queued up to stare at me throughout the journey with one little girl utterly baffled by the colour of my eyes. Not sure what colour bleary is, actually. Pink probably.

All those lovely volunteers, who have tried so hard, have often been utterly bemused by the sheer impatience of the Americans and Europeans, who can't wait for answers and want to bend the rules at every turn. And they have suffered our impatience with them for being rulebound to the extent that we are astonished that they can breathe out without permission from a superior. And why do the Chinese do everything in groups? Nobody seems to do anything alone in this country.

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BACKGROUND

• How the Brits became world beaters

• London double-decker arrives in Beijing

• Olympics proves capacity for greatness

• New dawn for British sport as Olympic sun sets

One snapshot illustration of how the rules must be obeyed: each day at our media village hotel, a team of cleaners blitz our rooms with massive efficiency, leaving behind two complimentary bottles of mineral water. I left the media village for a week to travel down to the sailing regatta at Qingdao. When I reappeared, I plonked my suitcase down and walked into the bedroom - where there were 16 bottles of water neatly arranged in two lines. Yes, each day, they had diligently put down two bottles of water, even though they could clearly see that there was nobody at home. But rules is rules.

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A colleague from another newspaper, staying in a four-bedroomed apartment with his team, was tied up in the same bizarre bureaucratic straitjacket. They ordered a broadband internet line for the apartment's living room but the hotel management insisted it had to be the responsibility of one of the four, so it was installed in his bedroom. Which meant everyone else had to trot into his room to use it.

They decided the easiest answer was to leave his bedroom door unlocked so that they could use the line any time he was not around. So he left the key in the lock and set out for the Olympic Stadium. When he came back that night - with his colleagues still working at the stadium - he discovered his bedroom locked and the key gone. When he inquired at the lobby, the management admitted that they had discovered his bedroom unlocked and the key, so they had helpfully placed his key in his room and locked it up. How then was he to get in to retrieve the key, he asked? Er, quite.

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So, as we pack our dirty smalls and prepare for the long flight back to lovely Blighty, what did we love about Beijing? Well, Beijing Duck, of course - yummy, we couldn't get enough of it. The sights and sounds of some of the most astonishing cultural monuments in the world, like the Forbidden City. The hours after the end of the events in the Olympic Stadium when thousands of Chinese milled around on the Olympic Square, dodging the fountains and taking pictures of each other against the backdrop of what could be, arguably, the best sports stadium in the world.

Dislikes? Taxis. Absolutely hopeless. We were starting to wonder whether any of the cabbies have ever been to Beijing. If there is one Olympic contest London will win hands down, it is with taxi drivers who know every inch of their city. Bureaucracy. everything takes an eternity and has to be cross-checked and double-checked. Huddles. one-on-one conversations are not an option here and everything turns into a group discussion.

Rewards? Well, all the journalists here have been given a medal (I know, strange but true) but, for the athletes, the rewards vary between straight cash - like the $1 million given to Michael Phelps by Speedo, his sponsor, for his "Golden Eight" achievement - to gifts, such as houses and cars. Sushil Kumar, the freestyle wrestler, has got something to look forward to because SpiceJet, India's equivalent of Ryanair, has given him free travel for life after winning a bronze medal. Gold would presumably have got him extra baggage allowance and an inflight meal, as well.

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And so our thoughts turn to London in 2012 and whether Team GB can keep up its truly extraordinary success at the Beijing Games. You can bet that the Chinese will be coming in even greater and stronger numbers aiming to top the medals table again.

But I have a cunning plan to thwart them and elevate Britain to the top of the medals league: we should put an emergency plan to the International Olympic Committee to revive some of the sports from the original London Games of 1908. After all, we starred in the Lacrosse, dominated rackets - in which all seven entrants were British - and couldn't be beaten in the Tug of War, where the final was between the City of London Police and the Liverpool Police Force.

That will fool 'em. Here's to London and an even greater Games in 2012.