Let's just lose all quantifications on this and just say public transportation in general.
I did not mind so much the taxis. Except that it meant getting separated into two separate vehicles. And cab drivers weren't all that hot on getting five white people during Rush hour. It meant a long trip to a hotel and a lot of lost fares along the way.
We did manage to find an auto rickshaw that drove us to the subway after the Acrobat show in Beijing. THAT was awesome. Funny how the riskiest least safest method of travel is always the most fun. 
One lasting impression China has left on my children is an arrogant sense of self walking on public thoroughfares now. We had the "white man walking" sign during this incident near Harbin. 
Hey we are having a great time on the Harbin public transportation bus Monday morning! Not too bad at all for 10 am for US .16
Shiny Happy People All
Oh wait. We have to take this same bus on the way home from our trip to downtown. Who's brilliant idea was it to travel during rush hour? Oh right. The bus was full of people five to six people across and the entire length of the bus. People were seated on the steps leading up into the bus. I wagered there were between 100-150 people on this bus. I was faced with the pleasure of a drunken man with his shirt unbuttoned and his sweatpants pulled up past his oozing shins and below the stained waistband of his underwear.
Subway travel became de rigeur. 
Here is the travel station out of Harbin into Dalian, China. 
Looks pretty peaceful, eh? 
Awwww look at all the gwai lo!
Here is what I can teach ou about traveling in China. Lines mean absolutely nothing to the people. Sure they'll wait patiently in line sans complaint for hours at a time...they are very respectful of personal space when it comes to standing in lines with luggage and belongings. But any semblance of movement by the powers that be, be it a whistle or a railway employee in a red vest and all Hell is unleashed. Crowds surge forward and people begin to cram into your body space, literally wrapping themselves around you using elbows and knees to get a better exit. Their strategy is mind-boggling. 
Here we are on the way to Dalian. 
Yay we made it to our seats!
Ummm...congealed salty chicken clotted rice and limpid vegetables
Panorama
sweet baby with no diaper and crotchless pants. That was their modus operandi there. 
Dalian
Leaving the train
Here was some evidence I found that reiterated the need for public transportation in China. The city of Beijing has about 25 million residents and 5 million cars.
5 million cars 
Honey you cannot turn left here. Sorry. 
Dalian 
from our taxi.
more traffic in Dalian
oh man
leaving the train to get up to street level in Bejing. This would take approximately 20 minutes of walking through a maze of corridors. 
If you focus on the fact that for the next few hour walking through the station you will see throngs of only Chinese, not ONE white person in the entire train station, you might get a little hitch in your breathing. I had to literally stop and look down and catch my breath. The crowds, the jammed corridors of flourescent lighting and noises and smells overwhelmed me at this point. 
Outside of the train station waiting for our driver. 
We had to walk up an extremely steep, slick, painted set of stairs out of the train station courtyard. We walked across a street and down a block to our driver's waiting van. 
After this introduction to the bus system in China, I told my family that I would walk for ten miles in a pouring rainstorm
The kids were so amenable and willing to try anything. Some of our favorite memories were actually in subterranean China, underground whipping through the bowels of the city on a subway.
Maybe it's true. Gwai lo have more fun!
Incredibly, not three weeks after we left Harbin, this happened.
When I was trying to find the link for this incident online I came across numerous videos of streets collapsing and highways collapsing in Harbin, China. There but for the grace of God.
It's not a question of infrastructure or being incompetent in design or planning. It is about a lack of pride of ownership that we saw repeatedly. Edges weren't finished, pipes painted with silver paint to hide their chalky paint, holes poorly drilled and construction shoddily put together. Even in our five star hotel in Beijing if you dropped something underneath the vanity you'd see huge hanging globs of milky silicone hanging from all the seams of the sink.
Harbin is one of the coldest cities in Asia. Average daily temperatures range from a high of 8 degrees F to -12 degrees F. That is really really cold. The construction of the subterranean shopping communities is de rigeur. They have to stay underground to survive. A city of that magnitude could not function above ground.
Hoping that this will be the last one we hear of. Two people lost their lives in this latest incident. So very sad. And so very much preventable.
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