Week 4 (Part 3) - Return to SHOU...the long way home

Bright lights

It was a 0530 wakeup call for the EMU train trip home, which was early enough, I’d say. Too early for drama, I think most would agree, and yet, that is what was waiting for us at the station. For whatever reason, only 1 window was available for the type of processing I required. A 40-minute wait in line, marked by the opening of another window just as I became 3^rd in line, pushed us up against the departure time. I recall running to airport gates to catch planes and the like, but this was the first time I had to run to catch the train. Once we reach the nearest point of our car, we boarded and began walking through the train to our seats. Good thing we did, as the train began to move just before I’d managed to sit down. A truly close call, but at least we were on the correct side of the closeness. We were Shanghai bound.

I mean, it looks fake. 

We decided to walk around Shanghai and grab dinner before heading home. To do this, we needed to unload our baggage. The first establishment we found for this was located in the belly of a parking garage, with luggage just hanging out in piles. We decided to pass. Luckily, there was a more respectable place nearby that had people in uniforms, behind a window, with shelves, at least. Unburdened by packs, we set out on the city. The center of our exploration was People’s Square. I think they meant to name it, Square Full of People.

Grand Theatre

It was a cross of 5^th avenue and Times Square. Mostly closed to vehicle traffic, it was mobbed by humans. Just an overwhelming amount of commerce and humans. We made our way to The Bund, what I believe to be a variation of ‘bend’, as in the bend of a river. Many people lined this river and looked across to another section of the city, marked by the now 2^nd tallest building in the world (maybe?) and other very interesting buildings. The most populous city in the world sure felt like it. Really overstimulating, especially as the sun set and the neon lights shone brightly.

Cattle drive

Eventually, it was time to go home. This is when things became interesting. It was rush hour on Friday night. First, we took the subway back to our luggage. Along with I’m guessing 10M other people. The subways were jammed full; people were left waiting for subsequent trains. I treated it very similar to rebounding in basketball, when the doors opened, I swelled up and boxed out an area 3x my size and collapsed into that area once the doors closed. This strategy was quite effective, I will say, and probably appreciated by my neighbors, who also benefited. After retrieving our luggage, we tried to avoid the packed subway by taking a taxi. Good thought, bad execution. Waiting 1 hour for a taxi to the connecting subway station wasn’t great at all – but it wasn’t…too awful. The cabbie talked Jie’s ear off the entire 30-minute ride – apparently a huge fan of Chairman Mao, but not current int’l affairs – and we arrived at our connecting subway to Lingang New City (where SHOU is located). After the 1.5 hr ride was completed, another 30-minute wait for a 20-minute bus ride was needed. Eventually, we arrived at the hotel. Thankfully, the A/C had been fixed and I was soon resting very comfortably.