Planes, Trains and Automobiles. And buses and scooters and boats and bicycles...

As my fellow travelers can tell you, we got around in China.  Also, we took some transportation.

To answer a popular question: the flight to Beijing took about 13.5 hours.  We headed north from JFK, up over the North Pole, and down over Siberia to land in northern China. (We did the whole thing in reverse to come home, but it took a little less time: a pleasantly brief 12.5 hours.)

Around China, we had a coach bus to lug us all from place to place.  It was lovely, but people really needed to pick their seat & stick with it.  I hated having to fight for seats every dang day.  It sucked, but it's fine. Whatever. Anyway, our transportation was rather boring.  The local folks knew where the excitement was:

Scooters.

I am familiar with carpooling, but apparently China has scooterpooling.  I would say about 40% of all scooters carried more than one person.  The best was seeing and entire family - Dad driving, Mom holding on behind him, and a kid sitting on the floor on Dad's feet, holding a small dog- all on one standard scooter!  Seriously, who needs minivans when you have a scooter.  Oh you know what else they don't need? Helmets. And at night-- no headlights! Are you kidding?? And the entire time, we only saw one accident. Statistically impossible, I tell you.  Safety shmafety.

And speaking of safety, although car seats exist, they are used about as frequently as diapers (more on that later).  While ripping down the highway, I looked out the window and saw this:

Yes, that's an infant pulling himself up on the window.  Remember, we were on the highway.  Going fast.  Oy.

Contrast the lack of confinement there, to this version of a taxi/paddywagon.  A passenger hails this "vehicle", then backs into it to sit down.  Look at that passenger in the second photo.  She looks like she's being hauled off to jail or something.

Bicycles were about as prevalent as scooters.  Check out this parking area at the Temple of Heaven.  The view out of the other side of the bus was similar-- rows of bicycles as far as the eye can see.  (Note the small paddywagon thingie on the left, and what looks to be a double-paddy in the foreground!)

If you feel the need for speed, China is the place to go for the Mag Lev trains.  Unfortunately we only got up to the snail's pace of 301 km/h (187 mph).  During peak times of the day, the train gets all the way up to 431 km/h (268 mph).

We took two boat rides too.  One on the Grand Canal (the one I've previously mentioned, with the dishes and the fishes and the pee), and a boat ride around West Lake in Hangzhou.  This is the start of one of my favorite jokes:  "A monk and businessman were on a boat..."

And when there wasn't a vehicle as a mode of transportation, feet did the trick.  Did I mention that we walked? A lot? We did. A lot.