October 20, 2010

• A Ride On The Orient Express 

  

  430 km/hr (280 miles an hour) of brute force brings you from the Pudong Airport to the Longyang Rd Station, which makes you slightly closer to Shanghai proper. 

  

  Exit the station, walk to the building next door and there you can take the Shanghai Metro into the city for 4 rmb ($.60).  If you only have one luggage and one carry on, this is all manageable.  If you have two heavy suitcases, then best to catch a taxi for 50 rmb from the Longyang Rd Station to Shanghai. 

  

  

  The Maglev is an overpriced piece of machinery (1.5 billion?), but it’s catchy and fast.  You start out slow, then pass bikes and houses and cars, then the cars become a blur.  The train only hits max speed during certain hours of the day, so if your train doesn’t go past 350 km, then you know you’re in one of those restricted time periods.  There is nothing to special about the interior of the train other than all the photo nerds pulling out their red line camera lenses to get a picture of the speedometer. 

  A one way ticket is 50 yuan ($8), but if you show them anything resembling an airline ticket or reservation, then it’s discounted to 40 yuan ($6).  If you want the lower rate, they will ask you for proof, so save your used boarding pass. 

  20 miles in 7 minutes.  If they built a high speed train like this from LA to Vegas, we’d be there in 90 minutes. I sat down, looked out the window for a couple of minutes and it was time to get up again.  275 miles per hour.  Oh, the speed. 

  

  P.S. Sorry, a little slow on the picture updates… they’ve disabled Xanga Photo Uploader!

  • 11:59 pm
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