Buses, Subways and Trains

Here's Wednesday's silly thing I tried to do China! The setting? Well, it's Wednesday. I've been to the office for a little bit on Monday and a little bit on Tuesday. Wednesday morning I happen to have an early morning meeting at 8 am Beijing time (of course, that means 7 pm for the people in Austin we're meeting with).
Since I have such an important meeting, I decide that I'm going to test out the Beijing public transportation system to see if I can get there in time (I know, not the most sane decision but I was still a little jet-lagged). Having very limited information in the form of a subway map that takes up a half-page in a guidebook, I decide on the following course of action:

1. Walk out of my apartment and pick up a bus to go 5-6 kilometers west.
2. Get off bus and get into subway.
3. Take subway to appropriate stop, get off subway and go to light rail station.
4. Pick-up light rail and go to appropriate stop.
5. Walk the remaining distance to work.

For all of this, I estimated one-hour. What information did I have? Well, I had that half-page subway map and tourist map (no good because it gives street names in English and usually there are only chinese road signs). I also knew that I lived about 25 kilometers from work and work is northwest from the apartment. Oh, and I have a good impression that the bus would travel in the same direction of traffic.

Now, I woke up early, got ready and walked out of the apartment at exactly 7:00 am. I managed to keep to my original plan through half of step #1. I got onto the bus (#731), paid the 1 yuan fare and then just sort of hung out and looked around. Much to my horror, the bus took a right turn about 2 kilometers down the road and just kept on going. So, now all I had was a bus heading north and a subway map. I guess I really should have checked a bus route map but they seem so hard to find. So I kept looking out the window and hoping that we'd get to some place with english signs or one that I recognized.

Luckily, the bus ended up on the 3rd Ring Road around Beijing traveling counter-clockwise. This was still good since this would still take me in the North and West direction (very important). As the bus kept following the gentle curves in the turn from north to west, I realized that I needed to add a compass to my backpack so I could keep track of directions. I knew those orienteering skills would come in useful at some time (just not now). By this point, the bus had filled up and I ws desperately trying to catch glimpses of english exit signs. I was hoping to find a sign that matched one of the stations on the light-rail (the subway segment of the trip had long since turned to dust).

Now, it's interesting to note that I was the only foreigner on the bus this whole time and that I kept surreptitiously checking my subway map in my bag. I had the feeling that I was providing a lot of amusement to the rest of the riders.

I finally saw a familiar sign and hurried off the bus. It was now 7:35 and my chances for making the meeting rapidly diminishing. I walked along the freeway for a few hundred feet until I happened to see a light rail train (!) crossing the next bridge. A quick skip, jump and run put me at the light-rail station, ticket in hand (3 yuan) at 7:40.

Things were finally looking good. I caught the next train, went two stops up the line and hopped out. A quick glance at the skyline indicated which direction the office was and I started walking. Actually, I was really lucky that day because by the next morning, the smog had reduced visibility to about 2 city blocks and I wouldn't have seen our work buildings at all. While I was walking to work, I looked into the street and saw bus #731 pass right near my building...

So, after all this misdirection and misinformation (on my own part), I managed to walk into the office at exactly 8:00 am. (!). So... it worked... so there!