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Published: January 7th 2009
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the journey
waiting room crowds On Wednesday afternoon Karl and I and half of Shanghai decided to head off for New Years Eve.
We left university with a crowd of students, all of us at the bus stop trying to get on buses already stuffed to the gunwales, trying to hail any cab, amazing.
Lucky us managed to get a cab and we sped off to Century Ave Metro stop. This is a great metro station that has 3 lines of metro, is close to us, and is not the huge trek once you get underground, that is involved in some of the bigger metro stations.
So once at the metro we headed off to the Shanghai Train Station along with so many others. 2 metro lines later, we made it without being crushed to death by the crowds, went across the road to get some lunch, trying our luck with yet another place with no English menu. Most times there is some one with minimal English, I can order rice in Chinese, and with the help of the phrase book we are usually not too surprised at what we think we are ordering and what we get.
A quick lunch and
the journey
Our train display board we made the trek inside the train station to our designated waiting room. We were going to Hangzhou, which is only 170kms south of Shanghai. All train destinations are listed on a display board both in Chinese and English with directions as to which waiting room you should go to.
D trains are the more comfortable ones and for a short journey this is all you need. Longer journeys with no D train might require a soft seat rather than the hard seat option; this is like going from cattle class to economy.
The waiting room has eating and rest room facilities, clear signs as to when to board, very easy to work out. Our train was called, and we all got on in 10 minutes, no fuss or bother, just walk, steps and get on. There seemed to be an engine at each end and 2 in the middle, a very long train.
Seats are like airlines but with more legroom, a food cart comes around, excellent toilet facilities, and its maximum cruising speed was 170kms, so smooth, countryside whizzing by.
The journey takes 1 hr 40minutes with one stop, past semi countryside with lots
the journey
these trains can cruise at 170kms, could not manage to get a picture at this speed though of vegetables in neat little patches, but still high rises and apartment dwelling in great amounts. All houses are very austere on the outside; no gardens other than veggie, rubbish piled anywhere and everywhere, no paint, no effort to make the outside look attractive.
We arrived at Hangzhou and followed the crowd. When you cannot speak the language or read it this is all you can do, follow others and your instincts.
We saw a taxi sign at the station; we followed it and somehow lost it and could not hail a cab once we found the outside streets for love nor money. Well not so true, because we ended up with a “private cab” for an agreed fee of 50Yuan to the West Lake Youth Hostel. Normal cab fare is 13Y but what can you do, 5pm rush hour, News Year Eve, not a taxi that was vacant, no idea of which bus to take and no idea of what else to do.
Our “cab” was a 7 seater van, curtains drawn across the windows, run by a guy who obviously looks out for lost lambs like us. I would not have gone in it on
the journey
Karl and the train my own but with Karl, we thought why not. And all is well dear reader; we ended up safe and sound and delivered very quickly to the Youth Hostel. Even though we were ripped off in a way, it was fine; the alternatives were not looking all that great.
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