Traveling in China offers many unique experiences. The subways are packed with more people than legally authorized. Pushing, shoving, and bumping into people are all common place. Stoping to assure yourself that the direction you’re headed is correct will surely allow you the experience of angry stares, agitated shovels, and judgmental confusion. If you are gentle-hearted, directionally-challenged, or easily flustered DO NOT use the subway during peak hours–between 6:00 AM and 10:00 PM. If you enjoy a good challenge, the thrill of adventure, the rushing flow of mass crowds of people, and the general wayward wonder of confusion, then I suggest a good trip on the metro anywhere during the hours of 7:oo AM to 9:30 AM. Conquering this feat will assure you of your navigational abilities and connect you to the feeling that our Neanderthal cousins felt when searching for new land or food.
For those who are directionally-challenged and enjoy literally putting their death life into other peoples hands, then may I suggest a thrilling leisure taxi ride. A taxi will assuredly get you to where you need to go on time, albeit while break land, road, and sidewalk speed laws. You want curbside service? No problem! A taxi will literally drive on the sidewalk in front of your location, minimizing any personal exertion. Feel like going out for a night on the town and the thought of a mass public transit just clashes with your chic style? Don’t worry! A personal taxi is your only option after 10 PM, but the late-night surcharge is included just special for you, so you don’t have to pay what those “regular people” pay.
In reality, traveling in Shanghai is beautifully easy. Shanghai public Transportation is entirely streamlined to one card that pays for the bus, subway, taxi, ferry, and high-speed-train The subway system covers virtually the entire city and is both numbered and color-coded. What the metro doesn’t cover, then a slightly less-easy, yet manageable, to navigate bus route can get you to those slight more remote nooks. It’s transportation systems like this that seriously lack in America, I’d love for something like this to exist in Cincinnati or Louisville. Hell I’d like it everywhere! Oh well, this is my stop so I’ve got to cut it off here.
nicholsrobert 