Clara Arrives! (Shanghai weekend trip)

On Thursday, I coordinated with an English-speaking taxi driver (well, his english is really only so-so) in our international community to get one of our drivers to purchase a bus ticket for me to travel from Beilun to Shanghai on Saturday, to meet Clara at the Pudong airport. (She will be visiting for a few weeks! Yay sister time!)

Leaving my apartment a 11am, the taxi driver and I had a nice Chinglish conversation about Chevy vehicles and how his car gets really good mileage (that's right, Blade fam!). Or rather, Kilometraje. How do you say that in Chinese? 

Bus ticket, Ningbo to Shanghai

I sat at the bus station for a few minutes before boarding the 11:35am bus, all the while subject to the stares of dozens of Chinese. The usual. No surprise that I was the only laowai in the 
terminal. I politely refused the badgering of taxi drivers who wanted to persuade me that it was cheaper for them to drive me, for 100 kaui (~$16USD, when I already had a bus ticket in hand that had been purchased for 115 kuai. Maybe that's something to look into arranging for another trip, maybe with more people. But I think the bus ride went more smoothly than driving in a car with a crazy driver would have been. And I wasn't looking to get ripped off and stranded in the middle of Shanghai when I really just wanted to get to the airport and pick up Clara. Perhaps such an adventure will be left for another opportunity.

Hangzhou Bay Bridge

The ride was not unpleasant, aside from the dude next to me who kept falling over onto me in his nodding sleep (I definitely nudged his head and body away from me the first couple times, but to no avail, and eventually just gave in and let it happen. Hah.). Also, the undulating, bumping rhythm of the bus going over China's many uneven bridges and not-level roads wasn't the best for grading paper (I quickly gave up that endeavor and employed my observational skills instead, which was much more interesting anyway). Chinese bus movies, while still quite violent, but in a more understated fashion, are thankfully much quieter than those shown on TicaBus (A big Central American bus line). 

Mudflats leading out to Hangzhou Bay

This is the service centre of Hangzhou Bay Bridge;
A 10,000 square metre service centre called
Land between the Sea and the Sky

Oh, window seat. Ever my saving grace on road trips. In all my travels, I never tire of looking out the widow and observing... This time I was taking in the scenery of: vineyards, rice paddies, fields of other crops and smaller vegetable patches in rural areas, tall bamboo and other reed-like brush in the swampy marshland areas along the side of the highway, polluted canals, green mountains off in the distance, trees and pretty flowers and landscaping planted around larger, more urban areas, urban sprawl and apparently rapid development of roads and overpasses and sky-scraping buildings, a life-sized cardboard cutout of the back end of a police vehicle propped up on the shoulder of the highway that was placed where I'm assuming was a strategic point before a series of tunnels, and eventually the sights along the world's longest sea-spanning bridge, across Hangzhou Bay and connecting the northern Ningbo area to Shanghai. Oil rigs and refineries could be spotted in the hazy distance, with the occasional line of round hills that appeared to be islands.

(The Hangzhou Bay Bridge is the red line.)

After driving along the bridge for about a half hour, we came onto land again had a 15-minute pit stop around 1:30. Other than a tour group of about 20 Spanish-speakers, I was still the only laowai. The sun was shining and I connected with my friends Matt and Julie, who just had their twin boys up in Shanghai on Friday. Matt and I coordinated meeting up to buy train tickets together for our return trip to Beilun on Sunday. 

I arrived in Shanghai around 2:45pm, walked through the underground passageways and got an awesome cream puff pastry. There was a Starbucks and of course a McDs and even a Cold Stone in this Shanghai South railway station. I got a map and did some research on return ticket options for Sunday then waited for Matt to arrive at the ticketing booth at the station. I also got some grading done, in between rounds of people watching. I even had my photo taken a couple times.

After all that waiting, it turned out that Matt and I ended up at two different stations. I went on 
my way, headed towards the airport cuz Clara's plane would be arriving in an hour. Matt was able to buy our return train tickets for Sunday night. So we had all day to hang in Shanghai tomorrow!

I loved the signs at the station:
Sign #1 in the background: "Ttickets"
Sign #2 in the foreground:
what the heck are "artificial tickets"?!
(I'm thinkin' maybe disposable, one-use passes?)

I rushed through the easily navigable subway metro station and switched lines. On the subway, I observed the usual crying babies, dozing passengers, crammed cattle car rush hour style packed cars, plus typical Chinese behavior of spitting and not covering their mouths when sneezing or coughing, but nothing too much out of the ordinary. Glad someone told me about the mid-line interchange of trains. Same line, but there is a split in the track. 

Thus far, I noticed a lot more people speak English around Shanghai not as many just blatantly stare at me, the foreigner. I was even pleasantly helped by a few people! 

I arrived at the airport around 6:20pm, 45 minutes after Clara's plane landed. It was perfect timing, because I waited 5-10 minutes, and her flight was coming out. I was the first person she saw, because, as she says, my sandy brown hair is not hard to pick out in a sea of Chinese. We caught the shuttle to the hotel, and were checked in at the Ramada airport hotel by 7pm. 

Ramada Pudong Airport Hotel in Shanghai

Rested and freshened up, around 9:30pm, we shuttled back to the airport to catch the metro into the shanghai town center, on the 10pm last train. A lot of people were rushing to queue up and purchase their tickets/passes for the last train. There were probably about 30 people, and only 2 operating machines, in a row of at least 10. I bypassed the automated machines and purchased two 24-hour passes from the lady at the booth. The second we went to enter the turnstile, it must have turned 10pm, because none of the turnstiles would accept tickets. So we crawled under the bars and made a run for it to catch that last train that we had purchased passes for! Subsequently, we had to crawl under the turnstiles when exiting the metro system an hour later, because our tickets were not recognized as having been used in the system! Less than 5 hours in China, and Clara (and I) had already committed criminal acts!

Clara and I reunited in Shanghai

The great thing about China is that it's not uncommon or uncomfortable to
take photos of yourselves in public places, such as the subway.
(I mean, my students take photos of themselves in class, for Pete's sake!)

At 11pm, we arrived in People's Square and the metro subway system closed. So we took a taxi to a neighborhood full of pubs and had dinner around 11:30. The neighborhood reminded me of an urban Portland-area neighborhood atmosphere, with houses, businesses, pubs and breweries and music playing on the streets, in a well-greened space with many trees and much foliage all around the paved streets.

Dinner in Shanghai at a brewery. Clara had to wait until
the following day in China to actually eat Chinese food.

After our late night out on the town, we had a relaxing Sunday morning, repacked Clara's bags (with my stuff as well), and headed back into Shanghai via the metro system. It took about and hour and a half, a straight shot on one line to the hospital where Julie is at, where we dropped off our bags. We arrived around 2:30pm and headed out without all the luggage to explore the area. We found an international mall complex, where we ate Chinese traditional food (dumplings galore, sipped on a really yummy milk tea ad a iced mocha, dumplings, and mango cream mochi) all for under $12. Then we wandered around the malls department stores and markets, looking at and trying on clothing. Walking along the streets back to the hospital, we impulsively decided to get hour-long manicures, for 40 kuai each (less than $6). 

Tourists in Shanghai

E-bike with bunnies and birds and turtles.
TIC. (This is China.)

Manicure time!

Manicure time!

Japanese mochi at the international mall

Munching on mochi

Train seats have more room than plane or bus!

That evening, around 7 pm, Matt, Clara, and I headed to the metro and boarded our bullet train around 8:00pm. We were moving by 8:14, only 5 min after the declared departure time. Very good, by Chinese standards! On the bullet train back to ningbo from shanghai, traveling at speeds of 200km/hr (120+ mph), we had a nice and smooth ride, bathrooms on board and with only a few stops at other main stations along the southbound route. In comparison to my bus ride from Beilun to Shanghai the day before, I wouldn't have cared if Clara had infringed on my personal space and had fallen asleep on my shoulder. (She had slept in my lap on the taxi ride home the night before.) It's so nice to have a little sister visiting :)

We arrived in Ningbo at around 11:00 pm and our private driver, Mr. Fan, picked us up at the station, driving us the 40 minutes back to Ningbo. We were home and unpacking in the Li Ren apt by 11:45 pm. Late night before starting the school week! But a good weekend excursion!