Public transportation: the subway is crazy and crowded and involves a lot of pushing, shoving, and having people shoved uncomfortably into your armpits while you hold desperately to the overhead bar so you won't fall over when the subway lurches. Tourist buses are way more expensive, more comfortable, more direct, and faster, but much less interesting. Taxis are a bit of a gamble. The guys standing around waiting at the bus and train station and targetting only foreigners are not always your best bet. They say 50 yuan for the ride, and when a helpful Chinese lady talks to them, they drop the prices to 20 yuan. They refuse to use the meter, the reason probably being that the actual taxi fare is 7.5 yuan if you flag down a taxi going by. Although if you don't have exact change, they keep the extra as a tip. Taxis are pretty fast and comfortable; some even have touchscreen tvs on the backs of the seats. Bike taxis or motorbike taxis are really fun, and super-thrilling if you like the feeling of fearing for your life as you weave in and out of traffic (sometimes the wrong way). However, it is necessary to negotiate a fare ahead of time and really stick to it. Local buses are very inexpensive, and very slow, and usually very full. They are loud, smelly, not always in the best mechanical shape, and they stop anywhere someone wants to get on or off (including in the middle of nowhere, apparently). And that ledge at the back of the bus above the luggage compartment isn't supposed to be a seat. That's why it was the only thing empty. The padding is almost non-existent and the leg room is not quite sufficient for anyone over 5'5". Not the most comfortable for those 3 hour bus rides, but definitely interesting - with bus drivers is where you really see some mad driving, dodging, and navigation skills! Local buses are also usually filled with very friendly and helpful people.
"No Smoking" signs: No smoking on buses or in taxis. But if you open the window and dangle your cigarette out, it doesn't count as smoking IN the vehicle. No smoking in most buildings. But the open doorway is totally okay. Sometimes the signs are just there for decoration, so smoke away.
Soft sleeper trains: Try your best to get bunks in the same compartment as a friendly older Chinese couple who keep force-feeding you chicken feet, pickled cabbage, and other delicacies; scold you for carrying around cold water when you should be drinking hot tea; speak no English but insist on speaking with you almost the entire 30 hours through gestures, mad phrasebook and dictionary wordsearches, charades, and pictionary; teach you Chinese phrases (such as various refusals for smoking, drinking, eating, and general use, the words for beautiful, food names, place names...) and quiz you mercilessly at odd times; invite others in the train car to come sit on the bottom beds and join in the fun until it's a loud, laughing, confusion-filled party complete with young Chinese men who ask if we have boyfriends, ask for our email addresses so they can practice English, and say, "I sink you need man" (and then we practice the refusal phrases we learned).
Asking for help: Ask the amazing staff at your hostel to explain things to you, and to write it out in Chinese so you can show questions or place names to Chinese people. If you need help while out somewhere in China, find a friendly-looking Chinese woman in a store or shop. They are amazing! We have had this a whole bunch of times now, where we stop someone and try - with our gestures, simple English words, simple Chinese words, and our phrasebooks - to ask for help. They try super-hard to try understand what we need (even when they understand and speak only a few words of English), and then go WAY out of their way to find out the information we need and lead us to the place we need to go or else negotiate a good fare and give directions to a taxi driver. We have been so incredibly thankful for the many helpful, friendly, selfless, and gracious people we have met on this trip so far!
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