>>1656489Frenchfag here, lived in beijing for a few years (2013-2018) and traveled around, ill relate to my experiences concerning high speed rail, beijing, shanghai, qingdao subways and beijing local trains.
The pros:
-Extensive networks and infrastructure: Seriously, it's huge. You can take the train from beijing to Shenzhen or to the far reaches of xinjiang or the high points of tibet via high speed rail. and there's tons of local and night trains running if you need to get into the middle of bumfuck nowhere with the central government planning more and more routes because china is fuck huge and they want to reach every corner of it.
Same goes for subways, even the "small"(in chinese terms) towns have a network of at least eight subway lanes going in every directions, beijing is on it's 16th line and they crap out one subway extension every year.
-Convenience and Price: Artificial prices means everything is cheap in term of travel. i paid 550 kuai for a one way ticket to shanghai from beijing and less to go to qingdao (shangdong, beach resort and german colony, birthplace of Tsingtao, would recommend.) and the ticketing system is copied from the japanese shinkansen, you can easily replace plane trips with trains. Stations are huge and usually lined up with stores and other stuff to make your trip more pleasant so that's always a plus
This goes with the convenience of japanese transport cards, the Yikatong (beijing) and other cards allow you to buy stuff from vending machines and convenience stores and other stuff.
That's all for the pros, i know it doesn't sound like a lot but it really make the whole thing better, at least if it wasn't for the cons..
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