Prairie Dogging Beijing -- Part 8
A side street.
Photographing a snow covered rose.
Back to the station,
and back to the beginning,
and out from under Beijing,
into a beautiful, but bitter cold evening.
So I take the easy way back to the hotel.
REFLECTIONS: China -- things they are a changing. Six years ago, on my first trip, I expected to see blue Mao coats and there were a few, but only a few. Six years later even bicycles are being replaced by cars and motorcycles. The subway line, at least the center North/South line, is spectacular -- fast, clean, crowded and orderly (and polite at least to an old foreigner). Clearly America went suburban; China, judging from Beijing. is going high-rise with public transportation connectedness. Kunming is also high-rise, but seems to lack the transportation infrastructure. Where is community in our USA suburbs??? Where is community in this high-rise culture??? We in the USA live in the GNP driven/consumer culture. China? -- look at the clothes, stores, cars, buildings -- they're on a rip!
I recommend "praire dogging" in Beijing. It's 33 cents a ride including transfers! I plan to do it again and hopefully when it's not so cold and not too hot either.
FROM WIKIPEDIA: The Beijing subway's first line opened in
1971, and the network now has 9 lines, 147 stations and 228 km of tracks in
operation. It is the oldest and busiest subway in mainland China, and the second
longest after the Shanghai Metro. Since the newest line, Line 4, entered operation
on September 28, 2009, daily ridership has exceeded 5 million. The existing
network still cannot adequately meet the city's mass transit needs and is undergoing
rapid expansion. Overall, plans call for 19 lines and 561 km of tracks in operation
by 2015. In addition to 9 lines already under construction, work is set to begin
on 3 new lines in 2009, and the entire network will double in size to 420 km
by 2012.
THE END