(101 Things About Shanghai) Getting from Here to There

After a bajillion years of searching real estate ads and a bazillion weekends and Wednesdays spent staring at worn, tired, spartan, absurd flats, we have finally found a new home. Unfortunately– as everyone has lamented to us– it is Expo year and housing prices have sky rocketed and, well, gosh, you sure don’t want to be trying to rent a new place now. Except we are, because our landlord wants our flat back because it’s in a very good school district and his daughter is starting school in September. So we have been busy. Very busy and very distracted and rather stressed.

However, I am midway through my self imposed NaBloPoMo and have vowed to do it as thoroughly as possible in spite of all the marking at work and all the house hunting in my free time.  This means I’ve had to be super vigilant in my walk and metro ride to and from work for things worth noting. It isn’t easy coming up with a new thing every single day when your path doesn’t vary and all your free time is sucked up by uninteresting work/home nonsense. Thus, a very commuter centred post.

In Shanghai, when you exit most metro stations that are outside of the city centre, there are freelance taxis waiting outside to take you (and your groceries) those last few blocks home. When I used to work way out in the wilds of Pudong, there were always a dozen motorcycle taxi men lingering outside Zhang Jiang Gaoke station, and outside my own Century Park station there were ramshackle vehicles that resembled golf carts cross bred with milk trucks waiting.  You haggled a price, hopped onto the back, and got your heavy groceries home without breaking the skin of your hands.

At Zhongshanbeilu, where I work up in grim north Shanghai there are the motorcycle guys waiting there, blocking the sidewalk. There are also the milk truck/golfcart guys. When I exit the metro in the morning they greet me and when I go home in the evening they generally ignore me because I’m obviously not going to hire them as I head into the station. I frequently see people climbing on to the backs of the bikes, happy to be off their feet for the last few blocks home.