Shenzhen Metro

This post is about Shenzhen’s Metro (subway).  It's China's 7th subway system.  The Metro is great.  Reasonably priced, very clean, ultra efficient, almost always on time, lots of stops (more always being built), no smoking, very modern, stops listed and spoken in both Mandarin & English, lots of cars/carriages, etc.  The nearest subway stops near my apartment are about 10 minutes away via a bus.  I have an electronic tong card which is great.  I can use it for both the buses and subway.  It’s refillable though you do have to pay a deposit for some reason to buy the card the first time.  You just swipe the tong card when entering and exiting stations.  The subway is mainly underground but there are parts where it’s above ground too.  It’s been open since ’04 and now has 5 lines.  Each of the 5 lines intersect all the other 4 lines at least once.  One of the down sides of the Metro is that they close fairly early; usually 11-12p.  A lot of buses stop early for that matter as well.  And as you can see from the pics below, sometimes the Metro is very crowded, other times not so much.  But it's usually more crowded than not, that's for sure.