From Here to There

As Mark & I rode in a taxi last night, I thought of a blog post describing how we get from one place in the city to another place. 

So how do we get from here to there? We now live about 250m further from the bus stop, a total of 500m walk. We walk to the bus stop to catch a bus to the subway. Two buses turn left and go nearest to the subway station. Other buses stop short of the subway station at the main intersection, then we have to cross the intersection one direction then turn 90° and cross another street then walk a bit more to the subway. Other buses turn right, away from the station, and stop further down the street.  We then have to walk to the main intersection and cross twice. Our timeframe and the time of day determine if we catch the first available bus and get off wherever it stops or we wait for one of the two ‘subway’ buses. We also find that the time of day affects the frequency of the buses. Rush hours of course mean that the buses come closer together and we are more likely to catch the appropriate bus. We find that evenings, past suppertime, both buses and taxis don’t come by as often.

Sometimes in an effort to save time, we take a taxi. That works okay if taxis are nearby. Last night we looked for a taxi for about 10 minutes. The downside of taxis is that they use the roads, which means they get caught in the traffic of thousands of vehicles.  Also, it seems that many taxis now rely on a smartphone app so they don’t pick up random passengers. Sometimes we wonder, too, if taxi drivers see us as foreigners and think we don’t know any Chinese or where we want to go. It is fun to see them relax when Mark speaks to them in Chinese.  It's also a great time to practice speaking since most taxi drivers don't know English.  Normally a taxi ride is quicker. I must say that our BJ taxi drivers maneuver the traffic excellently. Their skill amazes us in how they work their way through and around other vehicles. They do things on the road we would never see in the States. Yet they are careful.

We find our most reliable and efficient mode of transportation is still the subway. It’s always on time; it doesn’t have to battle other vehicles; and it goes everywhere in the city. Several notable events took place regarding the subway while we came home to the States. They opened two new lines and are working on a third new line. But the biggest change was the price increase. Up until the end of 2014, one could ride the subway anywhere for any length of time for only 2 yuan (=.33 USD). However, now the price structure incorporates distance. Therefore the shortest trips cost 3 yuan (=.50 USD) and the longest trips cost 7 yuan  (=1.15 USD), an increase of ½-3½ times. Still cheap compared to many cities’ subways, but we find ourselves reloading our prepaid subway cards a lot more often now.

So we are still learning to time our travels to arrive in a timely fashion. We seem to always be late wherever we go. Ughh!