But the Beijing subway is pretty weird. They have these really cool touch screen ticket machines where you click on your destination and then it tells you the fare.
The thing is - it doesn't matter where you are going. It's the same fare to everywhere all the time (and I think one bus transfer is included). I mean, it could just be a sign that says "insert fare for ticket", but they built out this whole system which can calculate the fare according to your destination, like the DC Metro, but it is a flat fee transit system.
And they don't throw you under the subway, they push you in. We were trying to get from one place to another downtown during rush hour and when the first train pulled in, my wife said "Maybe we should wait for the next one, since this one is full."
So we did, but I noticed that people were getting in and there were people on the platform packing them in so the doors would close. It didn't take long to realize that our idea of "full" and their idea of "full" are wildly different.
Oh, and yeah, you have to use the ticket to get in through the turnstile and then out at the other end, and through the reader each time. Even if they were stored-balance cards, you only have to read it at the entry OR the exit, but not both.
The only reason to do it they way they do it is to keep track of where everyone goes. So, I started telling the ticket machine i was going to, say, Tiananmen East, but then getting off at Wangfujing. They're about two blocks apart, but I wanted to know if it would raise any obvious suspicion.
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