On 04 February 2022, the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics began. The very next day, David travelled onboard a train on that very high-speed route leading to the venues. But this time, he wasn’t a spectator — but a verbatim “ticket collector”, as special edition railway tickets, now valid solely for reimbursement purposes (also making for unique memorabilia), became available at four stations – two in Beijing, two in nearby Hebei province.
An explosion in Covid Omicron variant cases meant that travel rules were getting more and more restrictive. David was unable to leave Beijing for much of late winter and the entire spring, so decided to spend the time instead of discovering the city’s suburban rail network.
Despite remaining doggedly committed to Zero Covid, China loosened some travel rules by early summer, eventually permitting quarantine-free cross-border travel to Macau even for expatriates resident on the mainland. David was therefore able to travel on the Macau Light Rail Transit (LRT) system in the first cross-border travel since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the 24 hours he was in Macau, he travelled on the entire Taipa line, visiting both termini and a number of stations on it.
Starting in December 2022, Mainland China dismantled its damaging Zero Covid policy. David remained in Beijing, “riding out” the exit wave of Covid, and is committed to more journeys into the new year. However, due to an unprecedented explosion in positive cases, David cancelled first-day journeys on new rail and subway lines for late December 2022, the first time this has happened in recent memory, and will not travel until the new year.
2022 Travelogue
National/Territorial railway networks
China mainland: Beijing
Urban rail/Metro/Tram networks
China mainland: Beijing Subway
Macau: Macau LRT