Transportation choices abound in China, although not all of them were accessible to us directly.
In Dalian, we had city buses, a subway (the Metro), taxis, Didi, hired cars, and of course our feet.
A typical taxi was an older Volkswagen Jetta, or a well-used Chinese market car, but more Jettas than anything else.
We went sight-seeing with Bangjie as our guide on Saturday, 8/10. We went to the observatory in a Didi, which was a relatively recent Toyota Corolla. A Didi is Uber in China, and it works just as well as Uber does here. Unfortunately, we, as foreigners, could not directly use Didi, as we could not link a foreign bank account to the Didi app. There were ways around this, like using WeChat pay to pay the Didi driver, but we also could not use WeChat pay directly without a China-based bank account. But, we rode in several Didis that were ordered up by our hosts, and it was an easy way to travel.
As we went to leave the observatory, we tried to get both a cab and a Didi, but neither wanted to come to the top of the mountain to get a fare. So, we hiked down the mountain to the bottom, and tried again, also with no luck. We hoofed a little further to the zoo entrance, and decided to get a bus back to the city.
The zoo was the start of the bus run, so when we got on the bus was relatively empty. That did not last, however, as we went along the route we picked up more and more people, until the bus looked like a typical bus in China, that is, crammed to the gills wit people. You can’t get too picky about your personal space, because it gets infringed on. The bus cost 1 RMB to ride, or about $0.15. Pam and I both were wondering how in the world we would get through the crowd to get off at our stop, as we were sitting opposite the doors. Turns out we were riding almost to the end of the line, so we didn’t have to worry about getting through the crowd. The buses were mostly BYD, a Chinese company, and mostly all electric.
We used the Metro in Dalian to get from the hotel to Wal-Mart. It is a new, clean, efficient underground subway system. It currently has 4 lines, with plans for 12, some of which are under construction. The ride we took cost 2 RMB each, each way, for a total of 4 RMB each, or about $0.60 each for the round trip to Wal-Mart, which was about 2/3 of the line and took 12 minutes 45 seconds (yes, i timed it – I also timed the elevator ride to the 24th floor, that took 50 seconds from door close to door open.)
Overall very easy to use, very convenient, as long as it is where you are and goes where you want, like all public transportation.
The van we were driven in every day to and from school was a Volkswagen Sharan, a minivan i have never heard of before. Our driver was the same very nice gentleman the whole time, he picked us up at the airport when we arrived, and took us back when it was time to leave. We got to know each other, even though neither spoke the other’s language.
That covers the various modes of transportation we took advantage of, taxis, Didi, buses, a subway, hired cars, and of course our feet, which we used to good advantage all over Dalian.
Dalian 2019 