{"id":395,"date":"2008-11-09T17:11:25","date_gmt":"2008-11-09T22:11:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maxonweb.net\/chinablog\/2008\/11\/reflections\/"},"modified":"2008-12-10T14:55:10","modified_gmt":"2008-12-10T19:55:10","slug":"reflections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maxonweb.net\/chinablog\/2008\/11\/reflections\/","title":{"rendered":"A Few More Notes"},"content":{"rendered":"

T-train to Shanghai– Last leg of the trip
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

We left Beijing Thursday evening around 7:30 PM on the sleeper train, and arrived in Shanghai the next morning about 9:30 AM.\u00a0 The “best” bunks are in the 4-person cabins (2 on each side of the tiny room) because they have a door that slides shut.\u00a0 There are also bunks in the hallways — three bunks high — but everyone walking to the bathroom or the dining car passes right by all night long.\u00a0\u00a0 John had the top bunk on the right and I was on the bottom right.\u00a0 On the left bottom bunk was a Chinese lady about my age who spoke no English and on the top was a young man who was a student in Beijing whose major is computer translation (“translating Chinese into English efficiently on the Internet), so he spoke very good English even though we were the first foreigners with whom he had ever spoken.\u00a0 His only experience with the language was in English class.\u00a0 We really enjoyed meeting him and pumped him with lots of questions, especially when we found out he grew up in Inner Mongolia.<\/p>\n

We received the royal treatment when we arrived at the Shanghai Railway Station.\u00a0 We were met at the train and chauffeured right to the Delta terminal at Pudong Airport an hour and a half away.\u00a0This was a surprise that Tongan and Rui had arranged for us, and it saved us hours of public transportation in the rain.\u00a0 What a blessing! \u00a0 The last part of the vacation was the 18-hour trip from Shanghai to Savannah.\u00a0 It was great to see Brian and Sean at the airport waiting to drive us home!<\/p>\n

\"P1040547\"<\/a> \"P1040545\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My new rolling backpack<\/strong> held up under all conditions in China, but see what the U.S. airline did to it on the last 45 minutes of the trip!\u00a0 And all of the contents were soaking wet.\u00a0 They are paying me to purchase a new one.\u00a0 To be prepared for our next trip, I’m going to upgrade to the same one (Osprey) John has because it has a few extra bells and whistles for convenience and durability.<\/p>\n

\"P1040599\"<\/a><\/p>\n

NEITHER RAIN NOR SLEET NOR HAIL STOP THE CHINESE COMMUTERS<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong> Even really rainy days don’t stop people from bicycling to work.\u00a0 They all have nifty rain ponchos which cover not only themselves but the stuff they carry in their handlebar basket.\u00a0 Motor scooter drivers have even larger and more elaborate ponchos that snap onto their scooters.<\/p>\n

Farmers work in the rain.\u00a0 Building construction and road crews work in the rain.\u00a0\u00a0 Pedestrian traffic is just as busy in the rain.\u00a0 In fact, it’s a great day for the street vendors who hawk their wares to passers -by.\u00a0 They sell lots of umbrellas.\u00a0 We bought a cool leopard skin – looking one for $1.40.<\/p>\n

We stood in a queue for about an hour one day in a heavy rain waiting for a taxi at the train station.\u00a0 So many in China do not have personal cars; life goes on in spite of the weather.<\/p>\n

\"P1040560\"<\/a><\/p>\n

BEHOLD the infamous squatty potty. <\/strong> Oh, the stories you won’t hear!<\/p>\n

\"P1020584\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

T-train to Shanghai– Last leg of the trip We left Beijing Thursday evening around 7:30 PM on the sleeper train, and arrived in Shanghai the next morning about 9:30 AM.\u00a0 The “best” bunks are in the 4-person cabins (2 on each side of the tiny room) because they have a door that slides shut.\u00a0 There […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-zhouzhuang"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxonweb.net\/chinablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxonweb.net\/chinablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxonweb.net\/chinablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxonweb.net\/chinablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxonweb.net\/chinablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/maxonweb.net\/chinablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":500,"href":"https:\/\/maxonweb.net\/chinablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395\/revisions\/500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxonweb.net\/chinablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxonweb.net\/chinablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxonweb.net\/chinablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}