For many tourists, the words "public bus" conjure up a host of unpleasant adjectives, beginning with "dirty, crowded, slow, and confusing". This last may be the greatest obstacle, especially if you do not speak the language and doubly so if you cannot even read the signs. This journal entry is thus designed to decode the mysteries of Beijing's buses and subway, in order to enable the first-time visitor to use them with (relative) ease.
The subway is the easiest place for visitors to start, as it services many useful downtown locations such as Tiananmen Square, Qianmen, and the Yonghegong temple. There are currently three active subway lines, unimaginatively named 1 (runs east-west), 2 (circular), and 13 (no idea why, large loop through the northern suburbs, so not of much use for tourists anyway). Trains are frequent and generally very fast, though they can be extremely crowded during rush hour, roughly 7-9am and 4:30-7pm. There are also no automatic ticket machines, so ticket lines can be quite long during busy times. Long term passes have recently become available, but unless you're planning to stay in Beijing for quite a while, they're not worth it. On the positive side, tickets for lines 1 and 2 only cost 2 yuan ($0.25) no matter where you want to go, including transfer between the two lines. Tickets for line 13, which is actually a light rail rather than a genuine subway, cost 3 yuan. Much more daunting for the first-time user though also much more extensive is the city's public bus system.
Buses go almost everywhere in Beijing, with fares ranging from 1 yuan for short journeys to 5 or 6 yuan for long rides on more comfortable buses. Though it may not appear so at first, the bus system is highly organized: each stop has a name and is marked by signs giving the numbers and routes of all buses that stop there. The signs, unfortunately, do not have English or pinyin, but almost all magazine stands sell bilingual city maps that include the name and location of every bus stop and (somewhat less reliably) what buses travel on what roads.