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Published: December 9th 2008
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Bus ride
Crowded streets in a major shopping area A little adventure is what we had on Sunday, when we rode the 991 bus to the end of the line in the opposite direction from Shanghai city.
No matter what time of the day or week the buses are full of people usually standing room only unless you get on at one of the ends. So we joined the usual throng of people.
These buses have limited seating with single rows mostly allowing the maximum people to stand up. Do not know what the load limit is but I have never seen a bus not take more passengers. You just squash them on somewhere.
I have developed a new technique of getting a seat, by standing up the front part of the bus where there are five seats and sort of holding a position which allows no one else to come past me and therefore allowing me to grab a seat if one of the 5 becomes vacant. It’s working well so far as on the last 2 bus rides I have had a seat within minutes.
The bus ride took us through vastly contrasting landscapes. The usual huge factories, farmland with market gardens, huge hot
Bus ride
traffic jams houses with what looked like grape vines from a distance, lovely avenues of trees, small villages, huge apartment complexes of row after row of high rises still yet to be occupied, a massive big shopping area absolutely teeming with people, a very commercial shopping area complete with McDonalds, Pizza Hut and KFC, a very manicured golf course, and then the end of the line.
The bus stopped and everyone on it got out so we decided we should too. We had only paid our usual 3Y but did not know how to ask what this journey would cost. Never mind.
We ended up at a little village with an immaculate school, what looked like a day care center, and a tiny market all set out on the street.
Many people just stopped in their tracks and stared, don’t think many westerners come out this way much. We bought some little cakes, similar to tiny pikelets and wandered around looking at what was on offer. Live fish and chickens killed in front of you, gutted filleted and plucked, vegetables, fresh pork, fruit, homewares, and the popped rice man.
This guy was set up with a small coal
Bus ride
Pretty avenue of trees, common practise to have them painted in white on the trunks fire, a rotating container over the fire into which he put rice and oil, and a large wind sock type of container.
He put a small amount of rice in the rotating steel container, added oil, set it over the fire and used a bellows from another box to keep the fire going well. He had a pressure gauge and when it got to where he wanted he put the end of the container in this big windsock-looking thing and let it go with an almighty bang. Huge explosion. Then he put the puffed rice into a large bowl which he wife took.
She then transferred it to a very large bowl into which she had some sort of toffee mixture, mixed it all up and then put it into a slice tray.
When it sets they cut it up into large pieces, bag them and sell them as some sort of sticky treat.
So we watched, took photos, people watched us watching, people watched me taking photos and all up it was a great performance.
So we jumped back on the bus, because all seats were vacant we had a choice of seats and kept them all
Bus ride
large streets built for the future the way home.
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