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So we’ve shown you where the big places in Beijing’s underground maze are located. Now it’s time to show you how to get around from A to B. Thing is — you need to go underground — and the only way in is with — a ticket. (Which, for too many of us, makes sense.)

Your Weapons: Play Your Cards Right

Beijing has officially stuffed its 38-year old paper ticket system in the paper bin. Beginning June 9, 2008, no amount of hollering to get into the station with an old, paper-based ticket will do the trick: the machines do only cards, which come in two forms: Single Journey Tickets (单程票) or the Beijing Super Pass (Yikatong, 一卡通).

If your trip in the underground maze is a once-in-a-lifetime experience — as in, if it’s a sole trip in your whole life — go for the Single Journey Ticket . Otherwise, though, go for the Beijing Super Pass. The thing is a lot easier on you — for one thing, you get spared the agony of waiting in line to get a ticket or being confronted with an automatic ticket machine that demands exact change only.

Getting A Single Journey Ticket or a Super Pass

“Oh, the agony of choice.”

Don’t get us wrong: Not only is choice extremely difficult for Blackadder (from whom we stole the previous quote with our sincere apologies), but with the Beijing Subway, card-wise, it’s a real pain-in-the-neck OR gate, not an AND gate, so to speak. You can’t exactly wave two cards over the faregate reader at the same time — nope, that trick won’t work. So you’ll have to settle for just one of the two: Single Journey Ticket or Beijing Super Pass.

• Single Journey Ticket (单程票, Dancheng piao): These are easy to get at a Subway station. You can get these either from an actual, living, breathing human being, or you can get them from a working but dead, lifeless machine. Human beings will hand you a Single Journey Ticket upon payment of the universal RMB 2 fee (Airport Express excepted); the machine spits the ticket out after you’ve paid.

• Beijing Super Pass (一卡通, Yikatong): You’ll have to find someone who can breathe (not something that only throws electronic messages at you) to get this baby. Then again, with the Super Pass, you’re not eternally condemned to getting them at your Subway station. Bus recharge spots (the famous “blue houses”) and a few banks, in fact (we know China CITIC Bank does Super Passes) will be pleased to hand you over a Super Pass. Here’s the thing: they require a RMB 20 deposit plus an initial top-up of RMB 20. You can throw a pink RMB 100 note (CNY 20 deposit, CNY 80 initial charge), and say this:

“Chong bashi kuai qian (充八十块钱)”

Man Meets Machine: Getting A Single Journey Ticket

OK, so you’ve decided that you want to abandon the world of touch-and-go Subway rides and settle for a once-in-a-lifetime (maybe!) Single Journey Ticket. And you want to get this thing from a ticket machine.

First of all, stay away from machines that have the words OUT OF SERVICE or MAINTENANCE on them (it’s too bad that was the only pic we could find). No amount of banging on the screen (or the machine, neither of which are recommended) will get you your ticket. Your odds increase at alarming rates if you find a machine that reads CHANGE, NO PAPER (insert coins only), NO CHANGE (does what it says on the lid), or, best of all, IN SERVICE. (RECHARGE ONLY is of no interest to you. )The machine accepts only RMB 1 coins and RMB 5 or RMB10 banknotes in good condition — if your dog ate it, the machine won’t eat it. (We know, we know: electronic indigestion sounds horrible.)Warning:

• Don’t buy return tickets at this machine. Tickets are only good for this very station — on this very day. (Yes, those are some seriously picky machines.)
• You need to hit confirm within 60 seconds, or your attempt at tricking tickets out of the machine (even legally) gets automatically nixed. (Some people miss this and end up causing massive queues in front of these machines.)
• Dead or disabled machines (ie those that give you no change, accept no paper, or are plain dead) are common currency on Line 5 stations in the evening, according to detailled research by your Beijingologist. You’ll need human-to-human interaction to get your Single Journey Ticket there.

Grab your change (if any), and your ticket. Head out!

Man Meets Machine: Topping Up Your Super Pass

First, the bad news: if you’re anywhere between Pingguoyuan and Fuxingmen stations on Line 1, as well as a few Line 2 stations, this trick simply won’t work. Automatic Super Pass Add Value machines (充值机) are on a permanent disappearing act at these stations. Seek human assistance instead.

Now, having said that, if you’re at any other station, you’re going to find at least one machine that does Super Pass top-ups. It’s often a machine that’s just slightly smaller thanAuto Ticket Machine. And it doesn’t have a coin slot.

Insert your card, choose English, choose Recharge, and feed the machine with RMB 50 or RMB 100 notes. Then choose if you want to recharge with a receipt (orange button) or without a receipt (green button). Life sure is great if you’re on at a Line 13 station, where just about all machines double as rechargers. And life is ninth heaven-ish in Line 5 stations, where you’re allowed to top up in increments of RMB 10 — not just RMB 50.

The Only Way In (And Out): The Ubiquitous Faregates

Probably the most important thing to remember about these faregates is how you use your cards — wait, play your cards right. This next bit is all you’ll need to know:

• Single Journey Ticket people, touch in and insert out. (There’s a card insertion slot — either integrated with the “touch zone” or as a separate part of the machine.)

• Beijing Super Pass people, touch in and touch out.

The other thing that’s of note: Stand outside the white line. (This is especially true for faregates on Lines 1, 2 and Batong.) There have been countless horror stories of people dipping cards while inside the faregate, only for the machine to beep in protest and the passenger getting just about no mileage at all. (We won’t even get into the mass crowds behind the guy.)

We Hope You’ll Never Need To Use This: Fare AdjustmentWe hope you’ll never have to use these guys, but just in case you lose your Single Journey Ticket or Beijing Super Pass, you’ll need to go through the Fare Adjustment counter. The fare will be RMB 3 (which is CNY 1 more than the standard charge, “to cover costs for the lost card”).If you lose your Super Pass — all hell breaks loose. Because Beijing’s Super Pass is not a registered card. If you lose a card with any charge on it, the extra charge, leaves you forever.And you’ll need to pay the CNY 3 to get out of the system.(Sniff.)

(Want to keep one of those cheap Single Journey Tickets? Faking a loss will set you back an extra CNY 1. Be smart and buy an extra Single Journey Ticket before you head into the system. It’s up to you to make sure you keep your “souvenir” ticket away from your “in-use” ticket, unless you want to be confused at the exit faregates!

Don’t Try This At All: Fare Evasion

It’s not like the Beijing Subway wants you to ride without paying. Heck, they’ve gone to massive attempts trying to stop this.

• Subway staff police the faregates like mad. If they catch two people (not a kid and an adult, by the way) slipping in together, these guys yell and chaos breaks out. (Or nearly.)

• Line 13 faregates are super-smart. To save energy, faregates on Line 13 close only after 8 seconds of inactivity. Just you try to storm in to an open faregate, however; this thing called “infrared” instantly gets wind of your (unpaid) presence, and before you know it, the doors slam shut as you’re just about to head for your train.

• Even if you’ve gotten in without paying, you’re still liable for a penalty. The punishment for riding without paying: ten times the standard fare. Owch. Not cheap.

Olympics Special: Security Checks

Safety first: The Beijing authorities have made security that bit more pronounced. With effect from June 29, 2008 — all the way through to September 20, 2008 — if you’re doing the Subway, you’re also going to be doing Security Check.

A few pointers:

• Baggage of any kind is liable for an X-raying. If your bag is huge or massive in numbers, it goes in for the obligatory check-up.
• You’ve got to have a sip of any water you’re taking in. (Just to be sure the stuff is not — “terrorist”.)
• If you’re caught bringing in explosives, you could be in for — on-the-spot arrests. They actually have people from the police at the Security Check!

We suggest that you travel light to avoid the hassles an impromptu Security Check could bring you.

Please Get Ready For Your Arrival

Good stuff. You’ve picked your destination. You’ve gotten your ticket, touched in, touched out (or inserted out), and are at your destination.

That’s just about it — pick your exit from the platform (this is crucial, as some stations use those sinister side halls where a wrong exit will cost you another CNY 2 just to get back into the system — or a long walk), and — be on your way.

After a long spell in Shanghai, and aside from a few trips to Hong Kong and Taipei here and there, I’m now writing from beautiful Los Angeles. Officially, I’m here to visit family and friends. Unofficially, I’m here to get a healthy helping of good old American mad-cow. Neither In-N-Out nor Claim Jumper will know what hit them (unless I can somehow make it to the House of Prime Rib).

Of course, I’m not here to bore you with my culinary misadventures in the States. Instead, I wanted to take this opportunity to share my random observations as I made my way out of Shanghai and transferred through Beijing before collecting my luggage at Los Angeles.

Part One: Shanghai Metro Pat-down

After the recent bus explosion fire that had quite a few Chinese friends wondering if the Shanghai Metro system was safe from those dastardly Xinjiang terrorists, I actually wondered: just what sort of security does Shanghai have to stop random terrorists from running into People’s Square and creating an unfathomable disaster. That is, other than the logic disaster of trying to board before letting people off…during rush hour. Rarely have I seen any reasonable security in Shanghai’s metro stations, and it honestly looks all too easy for someone with hidden explosives and malicious intent to just walk on in and obliterate the mob of humanity that uses the metro system daily. With the Olympics quickly approaching and Chinese domestic media scaring the populace with occasional reports of terrorism threatening to derail (heh) China’s rightful ascension to international glory, I thought they’d ramp up security or something. It never felt that they did…

…until I, of all the harmless-looking people in the world, rolled my luggage into the metro station this past Tuesday afternoon.

As I fumbled to stuff my 10 kuai into the ticket vending machine, a station attendant immediately and briskly walked over to me. At first, I actually thought she was coming to offer, gasp, customer service! Pleasantly flattered, I quickly tried to politely wave her off to let her know there’s no need as I understood how to use the machine. But no, she neither cared where I was going or whether I knew how to pay for fare; she just wanted me to open my luggage to show her the explosives I was surely hiding. Oh.

I, of course, complied. I set my luggage down and flipped it open. Interestingly, she didn’t seem too bothered by the brick-like bulk hidding in one corner of my luggage wrapped mysteriously in yellow graphing paper and a baijiu giveaway bag. I mean, national product or not, it could’ve been flammable baijiu, a fatty amount of explosive C4 plastique, or something equally dangerous, like 6 month F visas. No, instead, she poked warily at my Calvin Klein Escape deodorant. I quickly explained its purpose for masking unpleasant, women-luring, body odor. Confounded, she had no choice but to let me continue with my journey.

Four kuai ticket in hand, and suitcase zipped shut again, I quickly entered the station. I glanced back only briefly, you know, to make sure I wasn’t being tailed, due to my pleasing aroma, and made my way towards Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport.

If you’re coming to Shanghai, you’ll most likely be arriving through Pudong International Airport (PVG). Located 30 km east of downtown, it took over most international flights from the older Hongqiao Airport (SHA) when it first opened in 1999. It is big, it is modern, and the architecture is, uh, big and modern.

It is also remarkably unremarkable.

You really do not want to hang out there.

Yes, you’d think such a cosmopolitan first-tier city like Shanghai would have an impressively cosmopolitan airport like Hong Kong’s, filled with name-brand shopping and palatable dining options for the legions of travelers passing through each day, but as far as major international airports go, Shanghai’s PVG sucks (so does Beijing, but that’s a story the Imagethief tells best). Get past immigration, head for the exits, and make your way to downtown Shanghai, where it is far more interesting.

If you’re foreign to Shanghai, and no one was sent to pick you up, there are three common methods for getting from the airport into the city center, which is where you’re most likely headed. Each of these options are detailed below, with pros, cons, instructions, and some useful tips.

Method 1: Taxi

Why: Convenience. Unless there is a long line of people waiting to get taxis, this is your option for door to door service, and especially useful if you have a ton of luggage. The major drawback will be the cost, and the risk of dishonest drivers intentionally taking a less-than-direct route from the airport to your stated destination. Unfortunately, this risk gets higher the more foreign you appear and the less familiar you are with Shanghai’s roads/geography.

Typical rates during the day to the Puxi side of downtown Shanghai will be around 150-170 RMB. To the Pudong side, around 100-130 RMB. As long as you’re certain your destination is in the city center, you should get worried if the fare hits 200. A vein on your forehead should pop if you see 300. (more…)

We’ll get back to the “regular” Mind the Gap articles next Wednesday (I can hear the moans, I know…), but this Wednesday, I’d like to remain a traveller, and get local… or, eh, domestic, rather. I recently (well, actually, just today) went on a trip to the “other” metropolis in the making — Tianjin, about 100 kilometers southeast of Beijing.

I tell you, ladies and gents, there’s quite a big gap between internationalized Beijing and still-internationalizing Tianjin. If you thought that Beijing was Western Capital-ist already (and nearby Tianjin, itself just a hundred magnetic kilometers away from the capital, is just as Westernized), well…

The first thing I noticed was that Tianjin was getting more and more — American. Those of you given to zipping away on your Interstate freeways probably recognize the font right away. The CBDOK, so Tianjin must be a city. And how do you define cities? At the kiddie level, a city must have “tall buildings”. The more, the merrier.

Here’s how the capital turns out in terms of stratospheric structures:

Here’s the Tianjin variant: OK — remember, when I first visited Tianjin back in May 2004, I saw a misty, somewhat spooky, and a little broken-down city back then. Just about a hundred miles from the capital, and I see that kind of stuff — you know, somehow, it makes me quite frown-ish. I was thinking, hey, this is Tianjin: it’s supposed to build stuff just as good as Beijing. They’re both municipalities. They’ve got the land. Tianjin’s even got the sea right next to it. Tianjin has to do better than that!Tianjin did do better — cranes in Tianjin are about to surpass those in the capital in terms of the sheer quantity.

Ah, but Beijing has the central part of the CBD still — unbuilt. Want to play catch-up, Tianjin? Beijing’s still thinking… of building better, and bigger, buildings…

And yes, at that, more and more jams…

The Subway

Having being stuck in horrible jams since Time Immortal, yours truly is now a devoted subway convert (and that’s the case more and more with Mozart in the subway these days — or did they remove it?).

The first thing I notice was just how similar Tianjin subway stations look to the Beijing counterparts. All cubes. The Tianjin one is, in fact, a glass cube through and through (given that, did Beijing play catch-up when it opened its “glass cube” entrance at Dongsishitiao recently?).

Meantime, the Beijing variant is still cube-ish, but not all glass: Once you’re inside, however, Tianjin seems to lose out. Here’s the standard set by your big bro — the nation’s capital: Tianjin’s reduced to just about this: I say reduced because two things were massively reduced: peace and quiet (they kept on playing some really annoying cartoons; when Tom and Jerry debuted on Line 5 in Beijing some time ago, they at least were a bit more quiet), and the platform screen doors (it’s only half and half — I have a tendency to absolutely abhor “half and half” things).Copied Names

Tianjin should be sued whole.

Either that, or I’m seeing Beijing names in Tianjin itself. Take, for example, Fuxingmen Subway Station. Both of these stations are on Line 1 in both cities!

Beijing’s variant is this:

In Beijing, Fuxingmen is an underground-only matter. It’s old, it’s got a central platform, it’s a bit dark at times, but it’s an interchange for Lines 1 and 2.The Tianjin version of Fuxingmen station looks like this:

Believe it or not, it’s above ground, new, looks like a Beijing Subway Batong Line station, and is — new (I think I just said “new” two seconds ago). And nope, no interchange facilities here.Scarier is the fact that you are reminded that this is a blatant rip-off of the Beijing Subway, station name wise, by the station signage:

OK — now out of the Subway, and back on the roads. It seems like the capital has indoctrinated the Heavenly Ford (that’s what “tianjin” (天津) really means in Chinese): we have Yuquan Road, too: Traffic LightsHaving being puzzled by Tianjin through and through (the roads were the worst: virtually nothing lies exactly due north, east, south, west, and stuff like that, unlike the capital’s grid), I looked for my escape outside this metropolitan madhouse.

That’s where the traffic lights got me. They’ve a “combo” traffic light system where they have only one centralized traffic light — but it’s one where the arrow changes colors. If you don’t look and are used to seeing the green in the rightmost part of the traffic light, you’re in big trouble:

At the end of the day, I made it out of Tianjin alive. When I saw the Beijing lights again, I knew that I had survived to live to another day in one piece…

OK, OK… what does blue-ified Emmenthaler, Mozart music and half-and-half Sovietesque design have to do with the more underground bits of the capital of a People’s Republic of 1.3 billion and counting? They form the incredible miracle in the making known as the Beijing Subway, which will give the Tube competition by 2015.

A little stroll now, if you will, of our odd, somewhat obsolete, but always Ohne-Stau (German for “no traffic jams”) subway network. (You see, I had to come out with three Os in a row, and I had to cheat using my German.)

Underground Mozart

When Subway Line 5 opened, Beijing got its first taste of — underground Mozart, get this. Everything was new on Line 5 — platform screen doors, automated ticket checking machines (live soon), the signage — and yes, the music. The Mozart. Unfortunately, the Mozart disappeared about three months into service, but when it was there, being underground and waiting for the train was one of the best musical experiences. The music they had was relaxing, and you felt that waiting for the train in itself was more a pleasure than an inconvenience.

Architecture-wise, the Mozart Line (as I call it) saw some major breakthroughs. Platforms were suddenly a lot wider (about double some of the smaller platforms on Line 1), there were chairs at platform level (except for at the interchange stations), and those horrible blasts of freezing wind that were sure to send you shivering when you headed to the exits (a la Line 2 stations) were no longer there. The best thing was probably the variety inside the stations — we’re talking about things as small as whether or not the columns were square, aqua blue, or sunrise yellow.

The signage was a relief, although upon closer examination they seemed to be more than a mere clone of their Hong Kong counterparts. (This shouldn’t be making the headlines, though; Line 4, now under construction, will be brought to you by — the Hong Kong MTR!)

Half-and-Half Sovietesque-ism

If melodious Mozart, TV screens at platform level, and platform screen doors make subway travel all the more enjoyable, the opposite can be said about Lines 1 and 2. Built less as a mass transit network and more as a “just-in-case” operation to stop the Soviets thinking of attacking Beijing back in the 1960s, these two lines have all of the Soviet-ish design along with none of the art (of the likes of the underground railway systems in either Moscow or Pyongyang).

Possibly the scariest underground pits are in Guchenglu station, where trains literally enter an underground semi-jailhouse. No effort has been made to impress the incoming visitor; nope, the whole thing was just built in a hurry.

Better are the underground palaces on Line 2, although even with décor like what you see below…

…we think that they could have been a bit more creative. But then again, wasn’t this built before they applied for the Olympics for the first time in 1993?

Coming Soon: Blue Cheese

If you long for more of either the underground pits or the Mozart Line, take note of this: if all the subterranean blueprints work out, Beijing will be home to 561 km — of the underground railway system — by 2015.

A rundown would seem scary, but here it is.

• Ready by June 30, 2008: Subway Lines 8 (Stage 1, aka the Olympic Branch Line), 10 (Stage 1) and the Airport Line
• Under construction now: Subway Lines 4 (city section), 6 (Stage 1), 8 (Stage 2), 9, 10 (Stage 2), and Daxing and Yizhuang Lines
• Under construction by late 2008: Subway Lines 7, 14, and probably the Datai Line
• Reality by 2015: Line 15, and Changping and Fangshan Lines
• On the drawing board: Lines 3, 12 and 16

While we could tell you where all these lines went, this blog would have fallen victim to pages upon pages of detail. So to make sure Elliott and Min get some airtime, I’m going to point you to the Subway pages on the Beijingology wiki, and leave you there.

Meanwhile, before I go, I’d like to show you what a Line 10 station in the works looks like…

…and just leave you with this bit of news: from the pictures of Line 10 stations I’ve seen in the paper, get ready for underground blue cheese…