Running in Chinese Cities

I spent part of the day running around Shanghai, trying to become more familiar with the city. Sure, I could have done that by taking the bus, or the subway, but there really is no better way to get to know a place other than having your own two feet cross through it. Basically, from Xujiahui, I tried to get to the People's Square, which was only a few kilometers away. However, on the way, as it tends to happen when you don't know a place well, I got lost and ended up in Jing An Temple first before circling back over to People's Square.

Running in China, especially in the city, is quite an interesting experience. The issue is there isn't much of a running culture in China yet, and so there isn't much room to run on sidewalks that are overcrowded with people. The best place, in fact, is right on the road, in the lanes intended for bicycles, motorized bikes, and motorcycles. I enjoy running about as fast (or faster) than the cyclists, who often turn their head in surprise to see a pedestrian beat them on the road. In fact, in some places where traffic is really bad, running will get you thru places as fast or even faster than cars.

Pictures from the run:

Near Jing An Temple is a very nice garden area, which is good for getting away from the city. Some couples, elderly folks, and families with children spend a rare idle afternoon here:

Jin An Temple amid the traffic:

Nanjing East Road, close to People's Square (not sure who that random person with outstretched arms is):

Shanghai is better for runners than Beijing, as running by the road in Beijing tends to result in high smog consumption and a scorched throat. Back in Beijing, I spent an afternoon once running to (and within) Chaoyang Park, but was so discouraged by the air pollution that I never got around to doing it again. And this was while the Olympics were still in town.

Shanghai fun

A relatively uneventful week in Shanghai, though I had a chance to visit many old friends from Opera.


Xu Mingqiang and I at the Bund:



Zeng Yi and I at the Cheng Huang Miao:


Soup dumplings you can drink (!!) out of:


Dinner with Fred and Yi:

Shanghai

I took the overnight train from Beijing to Shanghai and arrived at about 7am in the morning. Travel by train in China is quite typical, much more so than in the US, and they have fairly comfortable overnight compartments. In fact, there usually are 4 classes - hard seater, soft seater, hard sleeper, and soft sleeper. While cheap, it must be unnecessarily difficult to go overnight via hard/soft seaters, as the sleepers are much preferred for the 13 hour journey. However, they were out of hard sleepers (which cost a little less than 200 RMB), and so I had to settle for a soft sleeper. It was about 500 RMB ($70), which is a bit on the expensive side, but as I had never ridden soft sleeper before, I didn't mind paying a bit extra for the experience.

It turned out that the train I was on only had soft sleeper compartments, and each compartment could house 4 people. It also turned out that while there was a lot of extra room on the train, my ticket was for a bed in a full compartment. Not that I'm against having neighbors, but it ended up there wasn't a lot of room with all the luggage I had on hand.




Anyhow, I decided to go to the dining car to get dinner. I ended up getting Lion's Head (not literally, it's a Chinese meatball dish) and some vegetables, which were surprisingly good:

Afterwards, I slept pretty well in the soft sleeper and woke up about an hour before we arrived. At Shanghai station, someone was offering to give me a ride, and kept asking me where I was trying to go. I ignored him, and tried to find the official taxi stand. When he saw I finally figured it out, heading for the underground passage where all the taxis were lined up, he tried to dissuade me by telling me it's the wrong way - only the subway was underground. It didn't quite work, but it's interesting what desperate lies people tell to try to win business.

I took the taxi to my aunt and uncle's house way out in Pudong. It is in quite a nice development, but unfortunately the seclusion meant that the taxi fair was quite high. I was quite unaccustomed to have to pay 75 RMB for a taxi ride when rides usually were around 20+ RMB in Beijing. Even the crosstown rides were only about 50 RMB...