So today I had a couple of to-do's, one of which was to ride the subway around and figure it out. When I lived in Washington DC, I used to take the Metro quite often until I got my car out from CA. B/c of that, I base all subsequent subway rides on the DC Metro. Here are some noticeable differences.
1. Trains in Shanghai are packed, I mean seriously packed. Imagine a packed train-car in DC and then multiply that by about 2 or 3. That's Shanghai.
2. People push and shove to get on or off the train-car. Actually, I don't really mind this. Everyone seems to accept it and frankly who wants to miss their train b/c they were the last to get on and none of the passengers want to move to let that person on. Now, people in DC generally don't push or shove, and such actions would probably warrant a heated rebuke and maybe even fisticuffs.
3. The train's color corresponds to the color of the line. So if the train runs on the purple line, then there's a purple stripe on the train, yellow line = yellow train. What a concept. DC trains all look the same, except for a small electronic rectangular area on each train that tells you which line it is.
4. It's fairly inexpensive to ride the Shanghai subway. For short distances, it's about 4-5 RMB, which is less than $1. The last time I rode the DC Metro, I think the minimum price was $1.65? I forget.
http://shangbert.blogspot.com
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I wonder if internationally, this is the standard mass transit experience. When I was in Greece, it was very much like your experience.
ReplyDeleteEeewww.. I have personal space issues. No subways for me when I come visit, ok? Are there cabs there?
ReplyDeleteYou can either ride on the pushy subway or really old, creeky bikes. jk. Of course there's cabs.
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