Winter arrives in Shanghai.

In the last week, a T-shirt is still OK; today, I wear a sweater, but still feel cold. The air started to show the character of air of winter of Shanghai – as cold as water. I don’t know whether it is the right word – the air in Shanghai always remind me of the word – crystal. People say something is crystal clear, and I want to say the winter of Shanghai is crystal cold.

However, the Sun shine today is wonderful – just like in San Francisco. In the morning, I waited outside the data center of China Telecom in Huamu. It was cold to stand in the shadow of the building, so I moved into Sunshine – it was much better. The heat of the Sun warmed me up. The only problem was, I have to rotate myself a little bit every minute to put the other side of my body into the Sun. I felt I was a pie in a pan, and you can only heat on side at a time… So you have some idea about how cold the air was and how warm the Sun was.

Metro Stations

On my way from home (Jinxiu Road and Chengshan Road) to Xujiahui, I past by many metro stations. They were on my way all the time in the last year.

The first one is Jin Xiu Road Station 锦绣路站 of Metro Line #7. It will be completed by 2010. I am waiting for that station to open, so I have a metro station within walking distance to my home. At the station, all traffic was detoured, and the roads formed interesting curves. The other station of the same line at Yanggao South Road 杨高南路站 is also under construction. It is a big block of area in the middle of the 4-lane road.

The construction site is much better than before. They have white walls (movable walls) to wrap the construction site up, so it still looks nice, and does not expose the ugly ground and construction materials to the public.

Along the Zhaojiabang Road 肇家浜路, there are three more stations, and cars wind left or right to give way to the construction site. These stations are to be completed by 2008, some even by the end of 2007.

Metro stations are no longer rare resources in Shanghai by then.

Nanjing West Road

At about 6:00 PM, after chatting with business partners, I stepped out of the Plaza 66. The West Nanjing Road 南京西路 has become another fashion center after Huaihai Road 淮海路. In my opinion, Shanghai looks the best at around 6:00 PM, when the Sun just set, and the sky is still a little bit light. The color is dark blue, and the lights of office buildings were already lit up. If you happen to be on a taxi and wind your way along the office buildings, you can see people working in their office – crystal clear. The saxophone music “Going Home” is the best music for this moment. On the West Nanjing Road, the night life started with fashionable ladies and gentleman hanging around – perfect image for me.

When I waited for taxi, for the first time in that area, I felt the ground is shaking. I could feel a metro train running just below my feet. It is metro line #2. I could even visualize a picture that many metro trains running in the tube deep under the road with thousands of people on board. There are hundreds of miles of such tube under the ground of the city, connecting stations, and business centers. Sometimes, I appeared deep under the ground level, to be one of the passengers, and sometimes, like today, I stand still on the ground with crowd passing by my shoulder and other people passing by under my foot – it is an amazing picture of a metropolitan city like Shanghai.