It is really easy to get around Beijing. You wouldn’t think so, given what everyone says about its immense size, the headache-inducing traffic, and the sheer number of people on the streets. Sure, it might take you ten minutes to cross the street, a six-lane monster (four car lanes, two bike/pedicab lanes) with a median barricade and a roundabout that forces you to take the underpass—requiring you go down, then up, a long flight of stairs—but it is all logical and (relatively) orderly. I have the 2008 Olympics to thank for this.
The subway is great—it is clean and safe (you must put your things through a metal detector every time), and the trains run like clockwork. But Beijing’s true transportation gem is the bus system. In other cities, to ride the bus, you have to know where you are going. You have to know what it looks like there, and when to buzz for your stop. I don’t even know how to take buses in New York. In Beijing, each stop has separate lines for each bus, manned during rush hour by yellow-shirted, no-nonsense retiree-volunteers. All the routes are sign-posted, and if you’re still confused, the yellow shirts will clear it up for you. Once you’re on the bus, the routes are clearly posted in both Chinese and pinyin, making it easy even if your Chinese is a little rusty. And the best part: you don’t have to know what your destination looks like or when to buzz, because the bus stops at every single stop, without fail.
Given how simple public transportation is, I rarely ever take a cab. On one of the rare occasions this summer that I did—it was 6:30 in the morning and Google Maps told me it would take me an hour and a half and three bus rides to get to where I was going—my cabbie got mad at me because I didn’t know how to get to my destination, and he didn’t either. He asked me to call a friend, and so I did, putting him on the phone with the cabbie. Apparently my friend, a native Beijinger, thought it was ridiculous that the cabbie didn’t know the place where I was going, and his choice of words managed to anger the already irritated cabbie. (Note to self: just take the bus next time.)
Even though Beijing’s public transportation was everything one wished it could be, I found myself missing the NQ to Astoria, with its arctic air conditioning (air conditioning is more a trickle than a blast in Beijing subway cars, and rare in buses) and baffling weekend schedule. My first time back in my subway station, a posted notice announces that Manhattan-bound trains will be skipping my stop. Still, it’s good to be home.