...via the backroads. It was a loooong, sleepless, nearly foodless (save a few airplane snacks and other packaged morsels) 26-hour journey from Korea (via plane) to Shanghai (via train/metro/taxi) to Hangzhou (by bus) to Ningbo (by bus) to Beilun (via taxi)... (you get the idea).
Recounting my adventure in traveling home will be lengthy, so I am forewarning you at the start of this post... though I have tried to make it interesting with details and personality, as I have gained expertise in telling this story repeatedly over the last week.
My plane from Korea arrived about 45 minutes late in Shanghai (around 7:10pm), meaning that I would consequently miss the last train out to Ningbo that night (the 8:05). Soon, I learned that "snow" in the area was preventing all forms of travel (snow was not yet sticking in Shanghai). Buses weren't running, nor were trains anymore, and taxi drivers and cars were blocked up on back roads because the thoroughfares were closing.
I networked, calling a friend/private taxi driver, Mr. Fan (he is a driver with whom nearly all our foreign expat community has a connection; we call him to take us to the bus/train stations/airport, get us tickets, or hook us up with transportation connections). Then I was in touch with other AIAN staff members and families who were in similar situations as I, experiencing delays and inconveniences of some of the worst weather this part of China has seen in 28 years. Thank God I was back in China with cell phone network, 3G connection to internet, and all necessary resources in the palm of my hand (thanks, iPhone!).
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A fuzzy shot,
but in this man's hand is the type of broom
with which they clear the roads of snow |
Let me explain to you how Chinese in the Shanghai/Hangzhou/Ningbo bay area deal with snow. Firstly, they have no snow plows. Therefore they use their brooms and shovels and sticks to clear the roadway of any snowfall, slush, or ice. As you can imagine, this only gets you so far before you have to go back and sweep the roadway again, or just hopelessly give up because the snow is falling faster than you can sweet (while this may be an effective way of staying warm while out in the middle of a snowstorm, it is NOT an effective way of keeping a road clear of snow).
Secondly, people do not know how to drive, or do not realize that snowy conditions require the caution that they normally throw to the wind while driving--i.e. cutting out at extremely close distances in front of buses, semis, or other smaller vehicles. I should also mention that snow tires, chains, or other winter-weather tread preparations are unthought of in this region. Vehicles and drivers alike are not suited to drive in harsh winter weather.
Due to the afore-mentioned factors, all the major expressways were immediately shut down (the
Hangzhou Bay bridge shortcut, namely, being the most important thoroughfare). I later learned that the bridge had been closed since mid-afternoon. The 2pm bus to Ningbo was still stuck on the bridge at 11pm that night. The alternative route is the old,
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The red line represents the Hangzhou Bay Bridge.
Shanghai is the pink area at the top, north area of the map.
Hangzhou is the city on the left (west) of the inlet of the Bay.
Ningbo is the city down south at the bottom right side of the frame |
roundabout way from Shanghai to the bayside city of Hangzhou, and then further down, southeast from there to Ningbo (the new bridge bypasses having to go through Hangzhou and is a more direct north-south route connecting the Ningbo and Shanghai areas. (See map)
So, because of unsuitable driving conditions, transportation out of Shanghai was looking slim that night. Regardless, I headed into the city from the Pudong airport (about 1.75 hours into the city by metro, cut down to just over an hour if the Maglev train is conveniently caught at the right time). I figured I would see if I could buy any sort of ticket for transport out that night, and if not, then at least purchase myself a ticket for the morning, and stay at a nearby hostel or something. I called to make a reservation on my way there, just in case. (My phone battery was already diminishing rapidly due to all this communicating.)
When I arrived at the Shanghai South Railway Station, everything was closed. I later found out that it had been shut down since the afternoon; they decided since the conditions were so "poor" (3-5 cm of snow in most areas, lessened visibility due to snowfall, and some icy road conditions), that closing the transportation ticket-selling stations was just the best idea. I was planning on turning around and catching the metro 25 minutes back up to where the hostel was in People's Square when a man caught my attention with a proposition to take a bus back to Ningbo for 200 kuai (around $35USD). There had to be a catch. Yet I let him take my suitcase and followed him outside into the night air, glistening with fine, falling snowflakes.
We rounded a corner around the station building, where three more Chinese men met us. I smelled alcohol on the breath of one of the men, and they were smoking (gag, cough, cough. my respiratory system screamed out!). They began talking, and I used my phone's translator to find out more specific details of this transpirational transaction, beginning to think that I should back out now before it's too late and my "organs are harvested," as Bob Duncan likes to warn. Then another man and his girlfriend joined the party. They spoke English. He needed to get home to the Ningbo area as well, to an area very close to Beilun. So I decided to stick with him. $35 isn't all that bad if the buses will get us there at some point. And with the weather forecasted to only worsen, better to head out earlier, as opposed to later.
Well, I got in a taxi that took us to a big double-decker bus. There were two others on the bus waiting as well. My phone battery was dying, so I plugged into the dash in the cab of the bus, taking the opportunity to get acquainted with the driver and his assistant, the Money Taker. We conversed, and I attempted to get more details out of them, with the aid of Google Translate, my Chinese dictionary app, and very skilled, practiced Charade/miming skills that I utilize with my ELL students. It seemed as if the bus driver was from Hangzhou, knew the area well, and would get us there alright. We waited for others to be taxied over (apparently this was an organized pirate operation, as this bus was operating independently of any transport company, and going rogue in the method by which we were to arrive in Ningbo). In the waiting time, I discussed with the men in the cab about routes, since the bridge was closed, as they puffed smoke into the enclosed, airless space.
Around 10:30pm, and few fist fights later, and after some exchanges of shouted words about the price of the fare (I believe they were one punch short of pulling a knife), this rogue/pirate bus was on its way out of Shanghai. I thought, at least I am on a moving bus, with the company of 10 other individuals, one of whom speaks English, and another of whom was female. So I wasn't the odd one out (other than for the fact that I am a young, foreign woman who is carrying a significant amount of technology that may look appealing to a thief). I knew I may not have made the best, most conservative, or safe decision in stepping on that bus, but I did know I had chosen an adventurous route.
Four hours later, we finally pulled into Hangzhou. I had been chatting with my English-speaking buddy, Ma, who turned out to be a former professional tennis player for the Chinese delegation. (Long story short, he explained to me his reasoning of quitting the team because he didn't want to represent a nation that, in his opinion, is so corrupt in its government and way of doing things, even though his family has a generations of background in high-up military positions and economic trade involvements.) My phone battery was charged, the Pirates movies were just about finished playing (are there really four of those movies now?!), and I was just getting sleepy. The driver shouted, in Chinese of course, for all of us to disembark the bus. We were in Hangzhou, finally (it's usually just a 1-hour ride south of Shanghai). Apparently, we were told that another bus would come to take us the second leg of the drive to Ningbo.
I groggily grabbed my suitcase, stepping out into the shocking cold and windy night air. I seemed to be the only one asking questions about where the next bus was, as we were on a street near some place called the Dongmen Mansion, near to the Hangzhou East Bus Station, and seemingly equidistant from the Hangzhou East Railway Station. (Thanks, Google Maps access from a smart phone!). Vehicles passing us were few and far between. Fifteen minutes passed. The weather worsened. I pulled clothes out of my suitcase and began layering up even more. Another sweatshirt, another coat, two hats on top of my ear warmers. A pair of sweatpants. More handwarmers. Another scarf to wrap over my face. My eyes, smarting in the cold windy, watered and crusted icy around my eyelashes.
I began asking more questions. Did anyone know what sort of bus would be by to pick us up? At this point, my friend Ma explained to me that the dialect of Mandarin Chinese that he spoke was about as different from the other individuals' dialects as Italian and Spanish (others present were from Shanghai, Ningbo, and another man from even further south). Entirely different vocabulary, conjugations, and accents. So they were barely even communicating. But it became clear that the bus driver "friend" of one of the men coming was, in all actuality, not coming after all. He had given up for the night about an hour away.
The buses that passed were full, headed in a different direction, and not stopping. We were at the mercy of chance. Still in contact with my other friends who were were on their way back from Shanghai and had been stranded adrift in snow-blocked roads, I began figuring out where they were. They, with Mr. Fan as their driver, had turned in for the night at a hotel in Hangzhou. As it turned out, they were only about 3.5 miles west of me. I tried to flag down a taxi, but none of them were going in the right direction. Taxis were all occupied (as is the case in any extreme weather happenstance) and all going in the opposite direction I needed to go. Some cars slid through the sludge, continuing through the icy intersection, and a couple even colliding. One stalled in the middle of the road. Another narrowly avoided said car. Some people tried to push the car out of a rut in the slushy mess. It was a sh** show out there. I was NOT going to spend the rest of the night just complacently waiting for a bus that may or may not come!
After having texted/called my friends, Google-mapped and planned a sufficient amount to gather my locational bearings, I called Mr. Fan, feeling awful that I had woken him up in the middle of the night (it was now around 3 am), trying to explain in basic terms where I was and for him to come pick me up (he speaks only broken English, so oftentimes effective communication is difficult). My plan was to go back to the hotel where the family of AIAN teachers was, and wait out the night with them, then figure out transportation back to Ningbo in the morning.
I waited for another 30 minutes out in the snow with Ma and several other strangers, huddling to keep warm. A food-vending lady with a pedi-cart joined us in the area under the overpass, taking shelter from the elements. Her rice-cooker fire provided minimal radiation, but we took what warmth we could get. It was the life of hobos. And it looked grim. Ma and I began discussing transportational options. He would go to the train station and see if there were any tickets. I would go meet up with my friends at the hotel. We'd keep in touch about ticket availability and meet back up later.
Just as Mr. Fan was within a 3-block vicinity of me, and Ma was just getting in a taxi headed to the train station, true to Murphy's Law, a bus heading towards Ningbo showed up. It was just after 4:30am. We took the opportunity right in front of us, knowing full well that it may indeed be another five hours on a bus before we actually arrived in Ningbo (because we'd have to navigate backroads). But we preferred getting out now, as opposed to later (and a good thing that we did, because Hangzhou was snowed in the next day, with no transportation in or out, all roads were closed, and trains and buses were backed up in ticketing nightmare fashion, people frenzied and frantic to get to their final destinations. My friends wouldn't get home until two days later!).
On the bus, the few other passengers who were already aboard were fast asleep in the "beds" they had created, occupying four seats each, as the chairs were laid back to create more comfortable space. I was furious that they were so oblivious to the fact that 12 more people were boarding and required seats. Couldn't they SHARE?! I was fed up. After forcing some seats up for others to sit down, I took a seat in the far back, behind some inconsiderate man who did not have the wherewithall to even consider putting the back up to give me more than two inches of room. I curled into a ball and slept, while unthawing, for about 45 minutes.
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"Unknown Location"
Really, Google Maps?
(Hm, I feel really secure and certain when
I am in an unnamed location, off-roading) |
When I awoke, I checked the GPS on my nearly battery-depleted phone. The cold and constant use of the device drained the battery in those hours out in the snowstorm. We were just barely south of Hangzhou. Really?! I knew it would be slow-going, but would we even get out of greater Hangzhou area?
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| The front of the bus |
I went to the front of the bus to plug in my phone charger, and, following my usual practice, struck up conversation with the bus driver and his cronies up front. It became apparent that they did not have a navigational system, and were just trial-and-error guessing which backroads would lead out towards Ningbo. I offered the use of my Google Maps and navigated backroads, all the while my phone "charging" about 1% per every 5-10 minutes. It's ok though. It took about 500 minutes to arrive in Ningbo, so by then my phone was nearly charged. They spoke Chinese, though one of the men knew choice English catchphrases. They made fun of me and my laowai (foreigner) habits, and I muttered things to myself about them. But we got tight. The chain-smoking bus driver even offered me some cigarettes. I politely declined. "Bu yao," ("Don't want") cough, cough, sucking on my inhaler so that I could stifle a breath in the murky, closed-cab of the bus. Hot boxing. Yay.
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| Through sweating bus windows |
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| Not much snow, but enough to slide around in |
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| Dreary |
Driving along the only open highway we could find,
after I navigated us out of backroads
By the grace of my handheld technology, and thanks to the bus driver's perseverance on the wet roads with crazy drivers, we finally pulled into a gas station on a corner somewhere in Ningbo midway between a pedestrian station and the Ningbo airport. I had been in communication with Mr. Fan in order to get a taxi hookup from Ningbo to Beilun (a 45-minute drive, in normal conditions), I suggested that I go to the airport and wait for Kate, my friend/colleague/fellow Jett-puppy co-mommy.
Though the Ningbo airport was nowhere near being one of the destinations or stopping points on my original itinerary, my travels led me there. Ma and I parted ways. He caught a taxi to his destination within the next hour. A passing taxi pulled over and offered me a ride, as the lady in the back was on her way to the airport as well (She was headed TO Korea, and as we chatted, I discovered that her little sister goes to AIAN. Small city of 5.4 million, and you run into people who have connections. Small world). I arrived at the airport 10 minutes later, and only had to pay about $2 to chip in for my shared ride.
Kate was supposed to arrive from the U.S. (via Taipei) around 12:30pm. It was 10:45am. I waited for her only slightly-delayed flight (Ningbo was completely whited out, and the snow was still coming down hard). We finally took a private car, sent by Mr. Fan, to Beilun, which took about an hour longer than in normal conditions. We witnessed more accidents, overturned semis, and even took a blocked-off route, despite temporary blockades/barriers. We cheered our driver on.
Finally, we arrived home in our Liren community. Jett puppy greeted us, and we unpacked our treasures. Kate had brought items for me from Sequim. Children had decorated our half-finished gingerbread house. There was snow to be walked (and peed) in! People to catch up with! Babies to hold (the twins had grown so much in just 10-days time!). Sleep to be had!
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| Snow in Liren, goodies from home, and the gingerbread house. |
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| With my Jett puppy! |
Kari flew into Shanghai that night, as the snow was beginning to melt. She stayed in Shanghai for the night, and took a bus back the next afternoon. With only slight delays on the bridge, she made it home in several hours. The snow was nearly all melted away, leaving puddles and mud. And she was sad that she missed all the "action."
