© Jian Shuo Wang
© Jian Shuo Wang
© Jian Shuo Wang
© Jian Shuo Wang
© Jian Shuo Wang
© Jian Shuo Wang
Magic Wall at CEIBS
5
Pudong Party Institute
I don’t know how to translate 中国上海浦东干部学院 to English. Maybe the Pudong Party Institute is the wrong translation, but I didn’t find any English name for it at Google. It is almost completed. It is just about 10 minutes walk from my new apartment in Pudong.
© Jian Shuo Wang
© Jian Shuo Wang
© Jian Shuo Wang
© Jian Shuo Wang
© Jian Shuo Wang
© Jian Shuo Wang
© Jian Shuo Wang
© Jian Shuo Wang
Experiencing Maglev Shanghai
Thanks to Spanky, who posted the following comment under my article: Maglev – A Failure?. I found the information very valuable and quoted the comment in this seperate post. Of cause all credit goes to Spanky.
I’ve just returned from a 3-days’ trip in Shanghai. As I had heard so much about the Maglev when I was living in this city one year ago, I decided to hop onto one for my transfer from Pudong to town. Following is a brief summary of my encounter:
1330 Hr: Pudong Airport Arrival Hall (1st Floor)
1335 Hr: Found the Maglev schedule on the 3rd Floor – next train @ 1350 Hr
1340 Hr: Bought ticket for the ride (¥50/way on economy class or ¥40 for passenger with air ticket of the same day) and board the train
1345 Hr: Maglev took off from Pudong, 5 minutes before scheduled time
1351 Hr: Arrived at Longyang Station
1400 Hr: Got into a taxi at the fourth attempt. (The previous three drivers claimed that they didn’t know where Tomorrow Square is. One of them even claimed ignorant of People’s Square when I told him that the destination is close to it!)
1430 Hr: Arrived at JW Marriott at Tomorrow Square
This new mode of traveling (Maglev + taxi) reduces the amount of time on the road and costs for transfer from Pudong airport to the hotel in Puxi. My total transfer costs came up to ¥80 (¥40 for Maglev + ¥40 for taxi). However, it will cost more than taxi fare (¥120-150) if there are three or more passengers traveling together. There won’t be much time saving if the passenger misses the connecting Maglev and has to wait about 15-20 minutes for the next one.
I must say that this mode of traveling is also not suitable for passengers with more than a carry-on luggage. This is because there are about five flights of escalators and some walking involved (no trolley available at the tunnel connecting airport to Maglev station and Longyang station).
The Maglev currently runs between Longyang and Pudong from 8.30 am through 5.30 pm at every 20 minutes interval. There are racks above the seats and between cabins for luggage. I do not think it’s necessary to pay twice as much to travel on first class as it is a very short ride and there are few users now (more Maglev tourists than transfer passengers).
I agree that an official website should be set up fast to create more awareness among travelers and encourage higher usage. Some advertisements at the airport will certainly attract arriving passengers to use the service. The overall experience was good and I will still ride on Maglev the next time I go to Shanghai.
Posted by: Spanky on April 20, 2004 11:07 PM
End of quote.
Maglev – A Failure?
Although the Maglev connecting Pudong Airport and Long Yang Road Station attracted much attention, more and more factors show that it is a failed project.
Very Little Traffic
According to this article: Shanghai cuts maglev train ticket prices, “the 440-seat trains carried an average of just 73 passengers per day last month.”
Are you kidding? 73 passengers per day last month? The $1.2 billion train just carry 73 persons per day. That means, there is, the Maglev get 5475 RMB or 670 USD per day as revenue. Even if there is no maintenance cost, the electricity is free and all the staff don’t ask for salary, the whole project is expected to withdraw all the investment in 5,000 years. :-D
Maglev website
It seems I still have to help promote the service via this website better than before. There is no official website for Maglev yet. If you search for “Maglev Shanghai” in Google, my article returns as the first entry in the result. I hope there is an official website that by pass mine and become the first, so they may double the passenger numbers so there is only 2500 years to break-even day for Maglev.
Updated: According to Alexandre, it was a mistake in news. It should be 73 persons/trip.
BlogCon without Wifi
Isaac noted BlogCon Shanghai Meetup. From the post, I got to know there are some problems with the BlogCon’s Wifi AP so Shanghai cannot see the real time broadcast. I am not sure whether it was a problem with the Wifi at Shanghai site or the Harvard site.
I planned to go there but I had to be in B&Q (the building material market) at the same time yesterday, busy working on the colors of the walls in the new house. So I missed it. I hope I can get a chance to meet those bloggers in Shanghai.
Migrating Scripts
This post is the insider information about the scripts used in this website. It is recorded for my future reference and may serve as inspiring tips for others running the same site.
Content of my old /scripts/ folder
[ads] – personal advertisement server so I can serve advertisement in the Featured section of my previous design. I decided not to use this for my new site since Google’s AdSense is a good one. It provides the functionality of Alternative Ad when a google Ad cannot be served. I can point it to my AD page to serve my own ad. Done
[air] – this part was written in ASP to serve China Domestic Flight information. I am planning to migrate it, by the end of April.
[bbs] – this is a BBS for my high school classmates. There is no link on any page of this site but my classmates. It is written in ASP so I have to leave it on the old server. I am redirecting all pages to the old server on CompanyCN. Done
[bill] – Ops. What is this? An empty folder. I forgot why I created it.Done
[commentsubscribe] – Oh. This is great feature for people to subscribe to comment thread. I am going to migrate it this month, so the subscribe this comment thread function will start to work after I put the check box on each page for so long time.
Updated April 20, 2004
Since the CommentSubscribe function has been migrated from PHP to CGI, I installed the CGI version this time. It is good news for me.
[google] – I tired to put all Google AD script code into a JavaScript file in this folder, but it didn’t seem to work. After migrating to SQL database, rebuild is fast so I won’t hesitate to rebuild the whole site now. I don’t need it.
[Hello] – folder for me to test new scripts such as “hello world”.
[links] – This was very important scripts for me to build the Yahoo!-like directory. It stopped working on iPowerWeb host. I am working hard to find out the reason.
[mailer] – Attempted to use this Mailer to send email, but failed. After changing server, sending email is very easy. So I don’t need it.
[mangle] – Mangle is the code name for the China Domestic Flight information project. It is changed to “air” folder so it is no longer useful.
[map] – Wow. This is an important application. The map view of Shanghai map. It attracted half of the visit before. It was written in ASP and I have re-write it in Perl.
[MTcn] – This is another MovableType installation to host pages for Wendy. She used this copy to maintain her blog.
[photo] – I used ImageMagick to create thumb view of all pictures on my computer. Since the new server does not support ImageMagick, I cannot use it any longer. Maybe I can create offline and upload the results.
[php] – Something like Hello, a place for me to learn PHP.
[pmwiki] – an installation of PMWiki. Not sure if I can still install it onto the new server.
[point] – another alias for the air.
[postcard] – scripts to send post card from this server. It is simple but useful. I will try to install it.
[proxy] – Scripts to try proxy.
[sendtofriends] – send a page to friend. Now MovableType support it.
[sms] – Scripts to send SMS to me via website.
[thanksforcomment] – a slash screen to show the big “Thank you for your comment” logo. You may have some impression of it if you follow this blog long enough. I don’t use it now.
[today] – Post on the same day of last year. Retired.
[usemod] – another Wiki engine. Retired.
[wap] – Use my WAP-enabled mobile to see comments on this site.
[webcam] – scripts to dynamically find out the source IP of my webcam. Retired after I found VICP.NET.
[wiki] – the OpenWiki engine.
Drive-Ins in China
Paul pointed me to this interesting article:
Drive-Ins the Hot, ‘New’ Thing in China
It is so interesting to me, as a new car owner. I admire that the drive-ins are already available in Beijing, but not in Shanghai yet.
Re: Movie
Every time I look back, I am surprised by the high speed of the change in life in China. When I was in my teenager, as described in the article, I did carry my small bench to a large football field to see movies. Workers will dig holes on the ground and setup tall poles, then hang the big screen in between. They have to pull ropes to fix the poles and the screen. The operator will sit besides the old fashioned movie player (very noisy) and show the whole audience (all on the football field with small benches). That was just 15 years ago and now, people still see the movie on the field, but in cars.
“You could say that we Chinese have gone from sitting on a rock to sitting in a car.”, according to Mr. Wang in the article. LOL.
Re: Car
There are definitely more cars in Beijing than in Shanghai, due to the wider road, larger area of the city, and cheap plate fee (around 200RMB). Shanghai has much larger population but smaller areas. A car plate has been 44200 RMB or more, according to the result of yesterday’s bidding, a 1200 RMB rise than last month.
Thanks, Paul, for pointing me to this interesting report. Can anyone tell me why there are fewer driver-ins in U.S?
One Month for My Goudaner (Car)
The same day in the last month, I drove my first car home. I named it Goudaner. Today is its one month birthday. The odometer on the car goes to around 1600 KM already and I used about 3.5 cans of gasoline (140L). It is about 8L/100KM gasoline consumption. It is not bad in the traffic conditions in Shanghai.
In the last month, I was very happy with the car. The only thing is, I didn’t find much time to take care of it. I hate rain in Shanghai. After it rains, the car is covered with dirt and I have to wash it. Maybe it is due to the heavy construction in Shanghai.
This morning, for the first time, the right side of the car was scraped by the wall when I tried to pull the car into the parking lot. I was heart-broken about it. It is not a big matter and can be easily repaired. The dealer promised me to replace the front protection bar for me free of charge. What a coincidence. I have to be more careful to drive it in the future. :-(
Canon WebView Camera VB-C10
© Canon.com
I returned from the Canon Expo Asia 2004 in the Super Brand Mall in Pudong, near the Pearl Tower.
The most interesting thing in the expo is the WebView Internet Camera. It is simple – just a camera with a 15V DC electricity power line AND a network cable. Plug it into any working network port and people can control the camera to move left/right/up/down and zoom in and out. There are some very interesting demos at their website. This is exactly what I was looking for and what I have tried to create one by myself. However, it is not available in the market in China and it is far to expensive for tech funs and home users. According to the staff in the expo, it is sold at around 100,000 10000 RMB in Japan now.
Working Vertically
There is a huge construction project in Shanghai with goals to add a roof to the old residential buildings. It is called 平改坡 (or roof to slope) project.
In the 1980s, a certain type of residential buildings were built widely all around China. Below is the picture of this type of houses in Changsha in central China. These houses don’t have a sloping roof and look bad.
© Jian Shuo Wang. Ugly houses in Changsha
Unfortunately, most of the houses built in 1980s and early 1990s are the same, which were called matchbox houses.
The good news is, Shanghai government has working very hard to remodel the houses by adding a roofs to them. Below is a picture I took from the top of the Metro Tower. The red roofs of the houses were added in the recent two years.
© Jian Shuo Wang. Houses with roofs in Xujiahui
Working Vertically
Below are the scene of the construction of adding the roof. The house was surrounded by the temp frames so workers can pain the house and add the roof. I took some pictures of the interesting scene. Many works line up vertically along the wall of the house and transfer building materials from top of the house down to the ground, hand by hand.
© Jian Shuo Wang. Workers line up vertically to transfer the building materials down to ground
© Jian Shuo Wang.
It was so funny.
Learn Shanghainese
I believe the first question jumping out when a foreigner decide to relocate to Shanghai is, should I learn some Chinese to survive there? The variation of the question for people who can speak Chinese is, should I learn some Shanghainese?
I talked about it in my Oct article: Mandarin or Shanghainese?. Today, I received an email from Bryan:
I recently stumbled upon your blog and really relished those informative bits that you care to share with us. In fact, they are rather useful in helping me gain some understanding of Shanghai since I will be working there in May.
Coming from Singapore and of Chinese descent, I have heard of the importance of learning to speak the native tongue in order to begin to establish good relations with the local business folks. How true is that? While I can speak Chinese decently, I am really baffled by my Shanghainese friend when he speaks in his native tongue.
Do you know if there are any radio stations in Shanghai that dish out programs in the native tongue? How can I prepare myself somewhat adequately in the language basics before leaving for Shanghai?
I’d like to talk more about Shanghainese.
I Don’t Speak Shanghainese
After living here for 9 years, I still cannot say simple words of Shanghainese. This is the case for most of friends who are not native. I am able to understand some Shanghainese. This happened after 3 or 4 years after I am here, since I didn’t intentionally try to learn the language.
People Here Speak Shanghainese All the Time, But Not to Me
People here prefer to speak Shanghainese, as long as there is a chance. You can hear Shanghainese everywhere on the street. However, the good thing is, if they know you cannot understand Shanghainese, they will switch to Mandarin rapidly. I appreciate it.
No Shanghainese Radio Station
There is no Shanghainese Radio Station (so far as I know). The city is encouraging using mandarin as first language. Students are required to use mandarin at school so there is not many chances to learn the language. Everyone in the city (with higher education background) can speak mandarin.
Shanghainese – Nice to Know
Although it is not required to survive in the city, it is a great plus if you know some, especially for those whose native language is not Chinese. You will definitely surprise your friends here.
First Week in Pudong
One week pasted after I moved to Pudong, with a car. Here are some observations.
Pudong is Big AND Small
Pudong is much bigger than Puxi. It has wider and higher-standard of road system. There are not many cars on the road and only red lights at some major cross roads will stop your car. I didn’t experienced traffic jam in Pudong so far. (This is based on my current observation, since I never drove around during business hours – at that time, I parked my car in the underground garage in Puxi)
Because of the good road system, Pudong becomes very small – you can easily get to any place on the map by car. In contrast, you will find driving in Puxi very depressive. You get jammed everywhere. :-( One night, I drove to the OBI Building Materials in Jinqiao (the north-most places in Pudong area), and get back – it all happened in 1 hour. So the life in Pudong is pretty similar with that in west coast of U.S.
Pudong is Quiet
There is not many people in Pudong yet. High buildings rise every day, but the population does not grow as fast as the buildings. From my observation, the newly built apartments are almost empty. There are only less than 10% of the windows are lighted.
Pudong Sleeps Early
At around 9 PM, Pudong goes go bed. Lights go off and the supermarket at the gate of my residential area closes. There are even less cars on the roads. At the same time, the life in Puxi just started. Many people should just step out of their office after OT (over time work) and head to theaters. That is the difference.
No Restaurants, no entertainment
This may not be true since I am not familiar with the area yet, so they may hide inside the small streets. But generally, there is not much place to go at night, and at dinner time. Fortunately, I still have the base in Xujiahui so delicious food is not too far away.
Fresh and Natural Life
After I moved to Pudong, I can see the sun set again. I can see the redish clouds on the west before the sunset. There is a long preriod of time from sunset to completely dark. This recalls the life in my home town in Luoyang. This is so common in most places in the world, but not in downtown in Puxi. It seemed to me that in Puxi, the Sun sets and it becomes dark very soon. There is no colorful clouds after the sunset. I suspect it may because of the high buildings that blocked the view and the reflection of the remaining sunlight after sunset.
At night, stars shine on the sky. I am so moved when I see the stars in the sky again. I clearly remember, when I studied in the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, which is located in the central part of the city, the sky is always light (redish light) even in deep night. Everbright is the best world to describe what I see from my window.
More Reports to Come
It is just the first week and I need some time to get familar with the new life, and see Pudong more clearly after the intial excitement goes off. I am still in the rented house – a very old and misarable place. All the belongs are packed into about 60 big paper boxes. I don’t want to unpackage them yet. The worst thing is, there is no telephone in the house, so after I get home, there is no way for me to update my site. I am researching two options: 1) To find a Internet bar nearby. This seems not working since you know – it is Pudong. :-) 2) To find out wireless Internet solution with my GPRS mobile. I hope it works soon.
Support Experience of iPowerWeb
This is a series of article on the customer support I got from iPowerWeb during my migration of data from my old host provider to iPowerWeb. I am somewhat satisified with the online support service I got from the support team. Due to the fact that I was also in the PSS (product support services) or response center (something like call center) business, it provided very good chance for me to analysis the support I got. It brings a much clearer way for me since it provides me a view purely from the customer’s perspective. Note: the message is ordered so the latest comment goes first.
Since I have to disclose the email communication between me (as a customer) and the support professional, I sent a query to support@ipowerweb.com to get confirmation that I CAN disclose the content. The result was negative. Their legal department didn’t allow me to disclose the communication between the support professional and I on my site. I respect their decision and won’t publish the emails I received. I have already prepared an article before I check with their legal department. So I removed anything I got from iPowerWeb and only leave the rest.
Response (Content removed) 04/09/2004 04:38 PM
Content removed
Response (Content removed) 04/08/2004 07:15 PM
Content removed
Another 24 hours passed. The result is, they finally find out a system administrator is not suitable to answer this simple question. A tier 2 support professional is better. :-D
But, Hey, now, 72 hours have passed and what will the customer think of the service? They cannot expect a Very Satisfied customer after the simple question pending there for 72 hours.
Customer (Jian Shuo Wang) 04/07/2004 06:11 PM
Any update on this?
This is uncool for me. There is no response in the next 48 hours. What is the result? What are the support professionals doing? The case was left alone there for 48 hours without any touch. Although I can understand – after working in a support center – that the huge number of cases may delay the response, but from the customer’s perspective, I started to wonder whether all the engineers are sleeping at work.
Response (Content removed) 04/05/2004 06:58 PM
Dear Client
Thank you for contacting iPowerweb technical support.
Content removed
This is very good for me that I got the initial response 38 minutes after I sent the support incident. This is a very important factor in customer satisfaction. The sooner, the better. Although they didn’t provide an answer, at least the customer know the incident is received and taken care of.
Customer (Jian Shuo Wang) 04/05/2004 06:20 PM
Is there any policy that preventing me from publishing the email
conversation between me and iPowerWeb support team? I am interested to share
the support email I got.
Regards
Jian Shuo Wang
Actually, there is no result in the next 48 hours….
PVG: Buses to Hangzhou, Suzhou…
There is a bus stop at Shanghai Pudong Airport (where all international flights to Shanghai land) serving shuttles to nearby cities. Here is the schedule:
| To | Price | Schedule |
| Hangzhou | 100 RMB | 10:30 12:00 13:30 15:30 17:30 19:00 |
| Suzhou | 76 RMB | 10:50 11:0 12:50 13:50 14:50 15:20 16:10 16:50 17:50 18:50 |
| Nanjing | 122 RMB | 11:20 13:20 15:10 16:40 18:40 |
| Wuxi | 110 RMB | 11:20 12:20 13:20 14:20 15:20 16:20 17:20 18:20 |
| Kunshan | 76 RMB | 11:30 12:30 13:30 14:30 15:30 16:30 17:30 18:30 19:30 |
Update May 11, 2006
Sean shared direction to the site also. Thanks Sean.
Little more direction for those of you that want to take the inter-city buses.
International arrival level is on the ground floor. After picking up your luggage and gone thru the custom check, take the exit, then go all the way to the right. Take the escalator or elevator to level 2 around there, take the over pass #5 or #6 towards the parking lot. (They are side by side) 1/3 way there you will see elevator that will take you to the parking lot below, one level down (top level of the parking structure) you will see a room next to the gated exit (next to the bathroom), that is where they sell the bus tickets.
Digitally and Physically Move
The update of my blog is not as regular as before. Sorry for that – it is because of the move – the move in both the digital worlds and the real world.
Digital World
Due to the continous server outage of my old hosting, I switched my server to iPowerWeb. It was a painful experience for the migration but now, it seems everything back to normal. I checked the disclosure policy so I can share the email communication with iPowerWeb support, but this case was not responsed after they esclated three days ago. Anyway, the website goes back to normal and it may take some longer time (one week at least) for me to migrate the old applications to the new server.
Real World
I am physically moved my home from Puxi to Pudong. The following three month will be very tough period for me since the newly bought house is still in the decoration stage. The workers are busy installing the basic infrastructure into the house – the washroom, the kitchen… This sounds strange to my friends from outside China. Actually, most of the apartments in Shanghai are sold as bare (raw) houses. There are only walls (not well painted) in the house when the owners get the key. One has to hire decoration (or remodeling/re-construction) vender to paint the wall, install the water pipes, even the electronic power lines into the house. This typically cost two to three months. My journey of the remodeling just started.
Now I rented a house near the new house so I can easily take care of the new house in Pudong. There is no telephone line (OMG!) yet so I cannot update my blog easily at night as before. So you may found the new entries come in early morning (local time) other than late night as before.
I will post some pictures later, when the garden of the new house is not in a mass. :-D
Life in Pudong Started
I have moved to Pudong last weekend and now drive to work at Xujiahui every day. The 16 KM distance costs about 40 minutes in the busy traffic in the morning. It is still not bad since I didn’t experience traffic jam so far.
Limited by the foreign plate (non-Shanghai plate), I cannot use the elevated highway in the morning, but it is not a big matter. I am convinced that the time I am not allowed to use the elevated highway is the time the policy don’t recommend people to use it. I have tried to get to the elevated road soon after the ban for me is lifted (7:30 AM to 9:30 AM, 4:30 PM – 6:30 PM), the elevated highway is still in a mass. It is something like a large parking lot, while the ground roads are still working. Thanks to the wide Zhao Jia Bang road connecting Nanpu bridge and Xujiahui, there are only red lights but no traffic jam. I believe after the Fuxing Rd. Tunnel between the Nanpu Bridge and the Yan’An East Road. Tunnel is completed, the road will be more easier to get through.
DHL Airwaybill Number
Air Waybill Number Origin Service Area Destination Service Area Status
=====================================
9146444086 Bellevue, WA – USA Shanghai – China, People’s Republic Signed for by: WANG Shipment delivered April 05, 2004 10:03
9146444086 – Detailed Report
Date Time Location Service Area Checkpoint Details
=====================================
March 31, 2004 12:01 Bellevue, WA – USA Shipment picked up
March 31, 2004 19:12 Bellevue, WA – USA Departed from DHL facility in Bellevue – USA
March 31, 2004 19:33 Seattle, WA – USA Arrived at DHL facility in Seattle – USA
March 31, 2004 21:02 Seattle, WA – USA Departed from DHL facility in Seattle – USA
April 01, 2004 12:56 San Francisco Gateway, CA – USA Departed from DHL facility in San Francisco Gateway – USA
April 01, 2004 13:40 San Francisco Gateway, CA – USA Transferred through San Francisco Gateway – USA
April 02, 2004 20:39 Shanghai – Pu Dong – China, People’s Republic Arrived at DHL facility in Shanghai – Pu Dong – China, People’s Republic
April 02, 2004 20:39 Shanghai – Pu Dong – China, People’s Republic Clearance processing complete at Shanghai – Pu Dong – China, People’s Republic
April 03, 2004 02:51 Shanghai – Pu Dong – China, People’s Republic Departed from DHL facility in Shanghai – Pu Dong – China, People’s Republic
April 03, 2004 04:38 Shanghai – China, People’s Republic Arrived at DHL Facility
April 05, 2004 10:17 Shanghai – China, People’s Republic With delivery courier
April 05, 2004 10:03 Shanghai – China, People’s Republic Shipment delivered
Still Working with IPowerWeb
I am also in the support business as ipowerweb’s support team is. I have created 8 cases for IPowerWeb, called them at 1-888-511-HOST for support for three times (via non-toll free international distance call) and I even complained directly to their QA manager via telephone for about 15 minutes. Now the simplest thing to point wangjianshuo.com to the hsot they gave me is still pending. I have checked with the QA manager to see if I can publish the support cases to the website so you have an idea of how frustrated customer feels. It is a great experience for me to learn the support business from the customer’s perspective instead of from the support center.
Wangjianshuo.com has been down for one week and it is pending on IPowerWeb’s support people to find out the problem – the simplest problem. They asked me to wait for 24 hours for the domain name to be alive, while I am very sure that it will not work no matter how long I waited – they just didn’t put it into their DNS server yet. Now it is in their DNS but point to the wrong IP address. Well. It takes another 24 hour to get a response. I have already paid for more than 100 RMB international long distance phone call fee for contacting them and paid much more money to hear the waiting music – average of 8 minutes. It proves a dissatisified customer will tell more than 20 persons about the experience. I hope I can post the emails between me and IPowerWeb soon after I get their confirmation.
Service Pause Site Migrating
Please note that I am still working to migrate the site to my new host at IPowerWeb as my reader suggested. It was not easy and I have to focus on the technical stuff – at least the domain name wangjianshuo.com should work tomorrow.
The process was by no means smooth and I have complained to the QA manager of the company after I tried to send about 6 cases to them. Anyway, the QA manager was very helpful and I hope the site will get back to normal status very soon. Please also be prepared that the site may goes down for some hours tomorrow. Just keep patient during the unstable time. I am sorry that I didn’t have time on new blog entry due to the migration, although I have a lot of stories to share regarding the recent house move to Pudong.
Gasoline Price Goes Up
I never noticed the the change of gasoline price before I bought my car. The bad news for me is, the price of gasoline goes up by 8% from 3.23 RMB/L to 3.47 RMB.
The traffic is still bad recently if not worse. I start to drive my car to work and back. The life of having a car is fun but expensive. The parking lot at Metro City is 600 RMB/month. I have to say, it is a huge discount already since it charges 10 RMB per hour for others.
The site
The site is still not working very well recently. The domain resolution does not take effect until late tomorrow. So you still cannot access wangjianshuo.com, but home.wangjianshuo.com is up and running, which is the best news among the bad news.