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Published: August 19th 2019
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So today I checked out of the hotel and expected to be able to get a taxi from the concierge, no problem. I had to go to Shanghai Train Station, not the one I arrived at near the airport, thankfully, as this one was really near where I was staying, It almost looked walkable, but with my luggage and the heat I decided against it. A wise move. But getting a taxi wasn’t easy. They looked a bit abashed and said it could take 20 minutes. There were others also waiting. Luckily I’d allowed loads of time. After 20minutes the guy said he’d ordered me an uber instead, or the Chinese version of it, and I paid him (20RMB) and he gave me a receipt, so I didn’t have to pay the taxi directly. Fine by me! It would have been a horrible walk with lots of roads to cross.
I was dropped by the south entrance and Leslie was waiting at the north. No queues for security and I was very glad to be reunited. Although I was perfectly fine on my own, it wasn’t nearly as much fun. We went to Pacific Coffee, which Leslie knew as a
chain in Hong Kong. As he was buying the (expensive) coffees a young guy offered to help. I think he just wanted to speak some English. He was very fluent and we had a nice chat. Compared to Zhengzhou many, many more people speak a bit of English in Shanghai and they are so helpful. It’s been a lot easier than I imagined.
The station was again ginormous and spotlessly clean, more like an airport. We had to go to waiting room 7 and it was huge and packed with people. It emptied out a lot once a couple of trains had left. There were 4 trains on the board and once one goes green everyone lines up to go through the ticket barrier and down onto the platform via escalators or stairs. We had to go through the green special lane, we forgot what the wording was, as the regular machine spat our tickets out. We showed our ID and ticket to the guy but he just flapped us through without really looking. This time the platform wasn’t marked with the coach numbers, but when the train came in it was easy to read on the display next
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Duck products, all in fancy packaging. Feet, skin etc to every door. It was actually 2 trains joined together. We were in first class again, aisle seats next to each other. This time there were NO FREE SNACKS, very disappointing, but the attendants came up and down with their trays of items, the cleaner swept the floor twice and walked along with a bag to put rubbish in. The toilets had paper and were the squattie types. You need to hang onto your tickets as you have to go through barriers again at the destination station, so don’t throw them out!
It was about 3 hours to Hefei with a few stops, and there we followed the taxi signs.There were about 4 separate lines, moving along at a slow shuffle. The driver nodded at the address we showed him and it took about 20 minutes on a road parallel to the freeway. We spotted a high end shopping centre called The Mixc for our rest day tomorrow. The taxi fare was only 23RMB, super cheap. We are staying at Howard Johnson Tech Plaza, quite a way out of the centre in an area which didn’t exist 5years ago and now is built up, bigtime. We asked for a
high floor and non-smoking and got put on floor 18 out of 26, adjacent rooms, mine has definitely been smoked in recently. Although it can’t be very old it’s quite dated, with wood panelling everywhere. And you have to lift the toilet lid and open the curtains manually, what a chore! See previous blog....
Drinks were available on the 22nd floor, one of the executive floors. I said we’d better check the charge and after a bit of googling with the attendant, Mary, it transpires that 68RMB (£7.95) gets you as many drinks and snacks as you like, so we settled in for some beers and a strange selection of items, pizza with odd white crunchy fruit bits, porridge, tiny pointless cakes, sandwiches kept under the warming lights and so were dried up and potato smiley faces. My buddy Karen joined us after she got back from work and later on we went out to explore. It is a lively local neighbourhood with a lot of people on the streets and there was some music playing with a group of older women doing some dance/aerobics routines they clearly knew very well, with one lady in charge of the boom
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The train info goes green about 10 minutes before departure. box. A lot had the same outfits, red T-shirt and black skirt, and it was a surprise when they turned round and you saw their ages. They were having a lovely time and we drew a bit of a crowd. They watched us watching them! The boom box lady gestured for me to join in but public humiliation didn’t look like a great option.
There are loads of little restaurant, some with pictures (yay) and a surprising number of supermarkets, but not immediately noticeable. Again, a man engaged us in conversation when we were looking into a children’s centre and ushered us inside to look. The ladies running it tried out their few words of English on us and one was surreptitiously trying to take our photos on her phone, so we turned round so she could get a good one. The atmosphere all round was very good natured and although I’m sure it’s unusual to see westerners wandering around it felt very comfortable.
I thought we could walk to the shopping centre tomorrow but the map says 1hr 10m so no, a cab it will be!
I am really enjoying China so far.
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