Chongming via Shanghai Yangtze Bridge and Tunnel

I visited Chongming with Wendy and Yifan today, so I experienced the Island and the Shanghai Yangtze Bridge and Tunnel. Both are great.

Shanghai Yangtze Bridge and Tunnel

This is another Mega Project in China. The whole project is 25 km long, with 16 km bridge (9 km bridge and the rest are land road), and 9 km of tunnel.

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shanghai.chongming-bridge.pole-font.jpg

shanghai.chongming-tunnel-entrance.jpg

shanghai.chongming-tunnel-entring.jpg

Cost

It cost 50 RMB single way to use the bridge and tunnel. That is about 100 RMB fee to visit Chongming each time. The bridge and tunnel integrate the island to be part of Shanghai.

Closer to Shanghai

Recently, Chongming gives me the feeling of Hainan Island – blue sky, green lands, and good road infrastructure. Since the construction of the island is not strictly controlled, the island is still in good shape.

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Driving Direction

At the north end of the S20 (Outer Ring Road), turn to the G40, and the tunnel is right at the starting point of G40 (Shanghai – Xi’an Expressway). The other side of the G40 is connected to G1501 (the Rural Ring Road or formally A30). To get to that point is closer than Pudong Airport for me.

It appears to me that I may visit Chongming very often in the future. It is just a better alternative other than Hangzhou/Suzhou for people in Shanghai.

Back from Chongming Island

This is the third time I went to Chongming (the first time, and the second time).

This time is a little bit special than the first few visit. Yesterday (June 28, 2008), the Yangtze River Tunnel + Bridge is structurally completed, and it takes some time to pave the road and install equipments. In 2010, people can drive to Chongming Island via Shanghai Yangtze River Bridge + Shanghai Yangtze River Tunnel.

Currently, we have to put our cars onto the boat and get to the island via 1.5 hour trip. However, waiting in the line to get to the boat takes 1 hour to 2 hours.

Here are the lines we waited before we get to the boat:

Leaving the pier:

Behind the pier is the Baosteel – the Baoshan Steel Company, a high polution source.

Cars parked on the ferry:

Finally get near to Chongming in 1.5 hour:

On the island, we went to another wet land, and get a crab. There are billions of them.

This is the trip to get back, and I found out Chongming is turned into a big port already these three days.

Bye bye, Chongming. I know I will come back again even before the Tunnel and Bridge opens.

Trip Tips

You can refer to Chongming Island category to learn more about the logistics about the island. Here are just some general tips for you to get there (in a not so systematic way).

  • Chongming Island is part of China, in the north, at the mouth of Yangtze river.
  • It is actually the third largest island in China, after Taiwan and Hainan.
  • Chongming is now still an island without any bridge connecting to Shanghai, so it is just like Pudong before development.
  • The new bridge and tunnel will connect the island to Shanghai in 2010, and the mega project is part of the Shanghai to Xi’an Expressway G40.
  • The island is undeveloped, and it is mainly rural area, where people grow all kinds of fruits and food.
  • Drive on the island is wonderful – there are not many cars on the island, and the roads are very beautiful with trees and rivers on both side.

Chongming Hotel

This question is rare, since not many people go to Chongming.

Dear Sir,

I visit your personal web site and blog site, because I trying to find

somes information about Chongming Island.

In fact I need to find a hotel on Chongming, where I will stay during 2

weeks for works, but I can not find any hotel information on the web.

Could you please help me and tell me if it is more easy to stay in Shanghai

and go to Chongming every day.

There are some hotels on the Chongming Island, but I don’t think they have websites yet. The only thing I can confirm is, it is impossible to going to Chongming back and forth on daily basis. It takes about 1 or 2 hour for the ferry. The hotel on the Shanghai side is not much better than the Chongming side unless you go to the downtown, which takes another 1 hour. Hope my Chongming Trip report helps to understand the distance.

Visited Chong Ming Island for the Second Time

I visited Chong Ming (Chongming) island for the second time. Last time, I cycled to Chongming and got back. This time, I drove my car and put the care on shuttle ship there. To drive in Chong Ming is great. I used J’s Canon camera to take some pictures of my car on the ship. I will post it on the web tomorrow when I get the pictures.

This is the first time I drive my car onto a ship. My car was the last to enter and there is no barrier behind it. When the ship started, I was worried because my car was parked just near the edge of the deck. It seems the car will fall into the Yangtze River at any time. I started to wonder whether I fastened the hand-brake. This idea almost killed me. I was nervous but the door to the parking deck was locked. Finally I asked a worker on the deck to help me check whether the hand brake was fastened.

It seems the worker couldn’t drive and he could not tell the status of the brake from the position of the brake handle from outside the window. So I shouted: “Just try to push the car to see if it moves!”

Oh. I regretted of what I told him. The worked goes to the front of my car and started to push very hard —– toward the river. OMG. Anyway, since my car didn’t fall into the river, I confirmed that the hand brake was fastened. Ha. What if it wasn’t? The worker with enough energy and “passion” will….. It is so funny.

Getting Back

I took the route of A20 directly to the Longyang Rd. I have to say, the road infrustructure of Shanghai is fantastic. A20 (the outter ring) is a very standard express way with numbered exits. It is part of Shanghai’s effort to make the city more friendly for international visitors. Compared with the original name – Huan Dong Yi Da Dao (or East Outer Ring Road), A20 is a better way to people to recongnize and remember.

Update Pictures to this storyJune 14, 2004

Below is my car at the edge of the deck. It seems the car can easily fall into the river if there is any Turbulence.

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© Jian Shuo Wang. Taken by Jack’s Camera

The detailed image of the beers on the car.

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© Jian Shuo Wang. Taken by Jack’s Camera

Chongming Trip

I put more pictures to Chong Ming with Chinese descriptions at http://wangjianshuo.com/personal/places/chongming

Update December 2, 2003 All pictures and links are removed to reduce the size of this site.

map-chongming-112km.gif

Here is the schedule and route:

  • 0700 – K0 – Start at 77 Cao Bao Road 
  • 1230 – K33 (+33) – Baoyang Habor, Wusong 
  • 1330 – K33 – Baoyang Habor, Wusong – the ferry left for Chongming 
  • 1450 – K33 – Arrived at Baozhen Habor at Chongming 
  • 1900 – K71 (+38) – Arrived at Dongwang Hotel 
  • 0400 – K71 – Start from Dongwang Hotel to Dongtan 
  • 0500 – K79 (+8) – Arrived at Dongtan and observed the birds 
  • 0640 – K79 – Started from Dongtan. 
  • 0720 – K87 (+8) – Arrived at Dongwang County again and had my breakfast 
  • 0730 – K87 – Left for Forrest Park 
  • 0750 – K91 (+4) – Arrived at K0 of Beiyan Highway 
  • 1000 – K111 (+20) – Arrived at K20 of Beiyan Highway 
  • 1200 – K126 (+25) – Arrived at K35 of Beiyan Highway 
  • 1320 – K131 (+5) – Arrived at Dongping National Forrest Park 
  • 1550 – K131 – Left Forrest Park after slept there for one hour 
  • 1600 – K136 (+4) – Arrived at K44 of Beiyan Highway 
  • 1800 – K148 (+12) – Arrived at Nanmen Habor of Chongming 
  • 1830 – K148 – The shuttle boat left Nanmen 
  • 2000 – K148 – Arrived at Shidongkong Habor of Banshan District of Shanghai
  • 2400 – K186 (+38) – Arrived home where I started

How to read the above route?

The above route was recorded in the following format

Time – Knnn (+nn) – Description

Time is in army format (24 hours a day) without the colon between hours and minutes. The K186 means the 186th kilometer after I started. The number +nn means the length of the route between one point to the other, which is also the increase number of Knnn. The last field is the description.

Server down

It is very bad that my site experienced technical difficulties continously last week. About 1/4 of the time was down. The ISP has promised to replace the server with a completely new one and plug the hard disk of the old one to the new machine this week. I hope the situation will be better.

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Riding a Bicyle to Chong Ming Island

From tomorrow, this blog will be paused for two days (namely, Friday and Saturday) since I will travel by bicycle to Chong Ming island in the center of Yangtze River. The isolated island is the China’s third largest island after Taiwan and Hainan.

The idea of travel by bicycle was inspired by some European people and by the dream of hiking in Kanas. October is just too long from now so I cannot help going out to see the island. Above all, the SARS months of May and April have almost driven me crazy. Think about, staying in the same place for the whole two months.

Thanks to ChinaQuest.com. They really did wonderful job on the GIS (Geographic Information System) of Shanghai. With their help, I found the island is not as far as I though. After the optimization of routes, it reports the distance between my house and the port of the ship shuttle is only 31,122 meters. Here is the big map.

The route ChinaQuest has suggested. I paste it in Chinese so it is more helpful.

交通工具:步行

路程长度:31122米

从漕宝路77弄出发

到漕溪路左拐

到漕溪北路直行

到衡山路直行

到宝庆路左拐

到复兴中路右拐

到汾阳路左拐

到淮海中路右拐

到成都南路左拐

到老成都北路直行

到成都北路左拐

到山海关路右拐

到黄陂北路左拐

到新闸路右拐

到乌镇路左拐

到天目中路右拐

到西藏北路左拐

到永兴路右拐

到宝山路左拐

到天通庵路右拐

到东江湾路左拐

到西体育会路直行

到中山北一路右拐

到逸仙路左拐

到淞浦路右拐

到淞桥西路左拐

到右拐

到西新路左拐

到淞兴路右拐

到班溪路左拐

到淞滨路右拐

到牡丹江路左拐

到淞宝路右拐

到双城路右拐

到宝东路左拐

至目的地:宝杨路客运码头

Chongming Map

Image credit: cmtravel.com.cn

Chongming Pictures

Image credit: cmtravel.com.cn

Image credit: Dongtan

My new bicycle

After evaluate the pros and cons of rent a bicycle (refer to P.S. Bicycle renting service section at the end and the discussions) or to buy one for the short 3-day trip, I finally bought a brand new Emmelle bicycle at 368 RMB (44 USD). Pretty nice. Here is the picture.

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I am very happy to start my journey. The previous experience really taught me to enjoy life instead and not be be a working machine. If you are still interested in my Starbucks plan, yes. I still plan to visit all Starbucks in Shanghai by walk.

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