Hand-Made Map of Pudong Area

Posted on by
43

Pudong Map

The result of last Saturday’s driving experience raises my interest in the Pudong Area. After I get off the Dapuqiao Tunnel, which is one of the 10 tunnel/bridges connecting the Pudong and Puxi, the roads become wider and the car speed raised dramatically. The road infrastructure has been well established. I practices a lot of time to get the most important roads out of the Pudong Area. To learn the roads in Pudong is just the same experience as I learnt the roads in Puxi when I first came here in 1995. I still remember the excitement when I realized Huaihai road and Nanjing road are paralle. This should be the most basic knowledge for any people living in Shanghai.

However, the situation for roads in Pudong is totally different. I bet 9 out of 10 people around me cannot tell the relationship between Yang Gao Road and Dong Fang Road, or the Zhang Yang Road – are they parallel, or intersecting? At least I didn’t know before. Now, I have successful drew the following map from my memory. After I can draw a map of a place without reference another map, I can declare that I know that place.

map-main.road-pudong.PNG

© Jian Shuo Wang

Here is the real map, showing the Jinxiu Road near the Century Park. I am personally interested in the houses there.

map-jinxiu.rd-inc.centary.park.jpg

Credit: Smi.stn.sh.cn

Updated: Interactive Map June 4, 2004

What to scroll the Shanghai map? Try the map below. Click on the arrows to navigate the map.

Why I Added Google Adsense to My Blog

Posted on by
15

You may discover that from today (Oct 22, 2003), the Google Adsense begin to appear on my website. It is typically a banner like the one shown under the Ad section on this page.

Experiment

I am just doing experiment to see if the Google’s newest technology works on my site. So far, the result is satisfactary. The advertisement served is pretty relavent to the content of my page and is not that annoying.

Ad Placement

Actually, I hate to bring the advertisement into this site, since I am passionate to provide more information about Shanghai and life here just because I love to do it. I am just conducting the experiment to see how it works and how much revenue it will bring. :-) I’d like to keep the banner to the second half of my content – after the article I created, so it should still be acceptable. What do you feel?

I tried to use all the layout of Google Adsense:

  • 468 x 60 Banner
  • 120 x 600 Skyscraper
  • 728 x 90 Leaderboard
  • 300 x 250 Inline rectangle

Finally, I choosed the smallest one – the 468 x 60 banner which serve only up to two sites. It looks more decent and fits into the design of my pages.

Andersj mentioned the idea to show the advertisement only on certain pages older than one month, so frequently readers always get fresh and ad-free content, and people from search engine will be served with content relative ads.

Still Expect Some USD for the hosting

To be honest, I still expecting to see money coming in from Google Adsense. At least, it may pay off for the domain names, the disk space. I always feel lack of disk space when I what to share something, like the Alcatel OT715 Mobile Software Suite. It does not make such sense for me to pay everything just to help others. :-)

PVG: Location of Maglev Station

Posted on by
30

Maglev is really hot recently. I can tell from the number of emails I received asking about the operation of Maglev. There is no such kind of good information on the web yet.

In the last few months, I have collected some and shared in the following articles:

More articles can be found at PVG Category page (PVG is the international air code for Pudong Airport)

Recent Operation

Now the Maglev has started to take passengers at Pudong Airport and drop them off at Long Yang Road Station. The price for single trip is 75 RMB.

Location of Maglev Station

Steve asked:

Is the way to the maglev train from the arrivals area clearly marked? Are there signs in English as well as other languages.

Well. It may not be easy for people to find the station. Since there is not sign for the Maglev yet at the International Arrival Hall. You will get very confused when you get there. It is another proof of the poor usability of Pudong Airport. I feel it is my responsibility to post some pictures about how to get to the Maglev station.

After you get out of the International Arrivals Exit (shown below), find the sign pointing to Parking. It is on the second floor of the airport. You can arrive there either by using the escalator on the right or the elevator in front of the gate.

After you arrive on the second floor of the airport, follow the sign to the parking lot. Then you will see a long bridge from the airport to the parking lots. It is shown in the picture below:

shanghai-maglev-bridge.to.maglev.jpg

© Jian Shuo Wang

After you enter the long hallway, you will see the first sign on the top pointing to Maglev. You can see the sign of Maglev Entrance with both English and Chinese name. The icon screen-maglev-sign.JPG is interesting.

shanghai-maglev-entrance-sign.jpg

© Jian Shuo Wang

After you arrive the end of this hallway, you have entered the building of Maglev Station. There is even a KFC restraunant there. It may be good choice if you are really hungry after the long trip.

shanghai-maglev-kfc.jpg

© Jian Shuo Wang

Below is the innovative roof of the Maglev Station.

shanghai-maglev-roof.jpg

© Jian Shuo Wang

Relationship between the Maglev Station and the Pudong Airport

Actually, the two buildings are seperate, but connected with a bridge. See my diagram below:

screen-pvg.and.maglev-map.PNG

I happen to find out another picture I took after the plane just departed on my trip to Xiamen.

shanghai.pudongairport-birdeye-with.names.PNG

It is highly appreciated if someone can share with others about your REAL experience to take the Maglev train – I haven’t get a chance to give it a try yet.

screen-maglev-schedule.png

Kecak.com – (No Longer a) Comment Spammer

Posted on by
12

Update October 24, 2006

Waking up this morning, I saw Yunata’s comment about the changes in Kecak.com. I applause for the change in management, and Yunata’s commitment to create a good company.

As you may noticed, this entry was posted 3 years ago, when Kecak.com sent comment spam to this blog (and many others). 3 years later, it seems to me that Kecak.com turned to be a good company. I felt it from Yunata’s comment.

I believe nothing can be a better evidence of a good company than showing people that they are correcting mistakes, and committed to make changes.

My fellow readers, if you are search for Kecak.com in Google and reached this page, AND if you have the time to read through what happened three years ago and today, I believe you will feel more confidence in dealing with this company, because they made progress!

I didn’t remove this entry (as stated in my reply), since this can make positive impact on Kecak.com.

Good luck to Kecak.com. We have some shared experience three years ago, and I will be more than happy to see a great company there.

Jian Shuo

End of update

My site is attacked by the Comment Spam – the advertisement posted on my blog entry.

Here are examples:

Good Job …Well done

Please also visit my Bali site at http://www.kecak.com

Posted by: Elizabet-Bali Resorts and Bali Resort on October 20, 2003 10:09 PM

Source: https://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20030302_guestbook.htm#1009

The Next Version of Email Spam and Net Send Spam

Actually, it is the next wave of spam after Email spam and Net send spam. Becaues of the wide adoption of the same system – the MovableType or other simliar system, and the anonymous nature of these system, it is very easy for the bad guys to send the spam to millions of blogs in serveral hours.

Not only links

The comment spam not only bring more visitors to their website. More importantly, it add much value for its Google PageRank. From Google, we can see that there are 1560 pages/sites link to this site, so their PageRank is already PR6. It is a good number that help them list high in Google search result. Just a simple test: Type Bali in Google and you will find out it is listed as the 7th website.

Google judges the importance of a website by the link pointing to them. A link to a site stands as a vote to that website. Actually, the spammer has stealed the vote right from my website. It is bad.

The Trick Behind

The spam happens two weeks ago. It seems that the spammer thought of the idea in one night. Just after I wake up one morning, I found a lots of entries with the same name and content on many of my pages. It was really a hard job to delete them one by one and put their IP address into the block list.

Regarding this Spammer from Bali, they are creating very bad reputation for the beautiful island of Bali. I receive serveral spam from this guy every day. I know the name of this guy – John or William. It is for sure that they are fake names. Look at the two comments below (originally posted here)

Great site !!!

Please also visit my Bali site at http://www.baliforyou.com/bali/

Posted by: John- Bali Hotels Travel on October 20, 2003 10:15 PM

Good Job …Well done

Please also visit my Bali site at http://www.kecak.com

Posted by: Elizabet-Bali Resorts and Bali Resort on October 20, 2003 10:17 PM

It seems that the two comments are pointing to two different website. They seem to compete with each other. However, they are exactly the same site. Here are the details of the post.

Entry: Emails and Privacy Policies

IP Address 202.146.236.4

Author: Elizabet-Bali Resorts and Bali Resort

Email Address: william@kecak.com

Comment

Good Job …Well done

Please also visit my Bali site at http://www.kecak.com

Entry: Emails and Privacy Policies

IP Address 202.146.236.4

Author: John- Bali Hotels Travel

Email Address: john@baliforyou.com

Comment

Great site !!!

Please also visit my Bali site at http://www.baliforyou.com/bali/

You see, these two comments came in with only two minutes in interval and came from the same IP address.

Moreover, by using the Google search, you clearly discover that this spammer has successfully spamed 653 pages using the term Great site !!! Please also visit my Bali site at and 286 pages with the pattern of “Good Job …Well done Please also visit my Bali site at” by 12:37 AM 10/21/2003

Please note that the number is only the pages indexed by Google at the time of last crawl. My victim page is not on the list yet. So the pages infected by this spammer should be at least serveral thousand.

Moreover, http://www.putritour.com are also a alias for this big spammer.

Disaster for Bali Island Website

If this company continue to conduct this kind of criminal on the web, the websites of Bali Island will face big problem. I am seeking for blacklist for MovableType spam and found MT-Blacklist (via MovableType.org). Websites containing the term of Bali has already been listed in the 400 spammer list by default. I believe more and more website will implement this kind of blacklist. At least I am going to filter all comments with the term Bali in content.

The Solution

Just as we have worked together to shut down EndAds.com before, we will finally find out the way to stop them from doing this. Before the spammers stop by themself, I am going to implement the anti-spam MT plugin in the next few days.

Good luck, the spammers.

Appendix

Automatic Email Response from their Contact Page.

===========================

Dear Jianshuo Wang,

We received your message today. We would like to offer our sincere thanks to

you for for Inquirying

Our staff responds to Inquiries during regular business hours, although we

also attempt to answer Inquiries in the evenings and weekends whenever possible!

Inquiries are normally answered within 4-8 hours on week days and 8-10 on

weekends. You should be receiving a personal response by e-mail from one of our staff

shortly.

Best Regards,

Ngurah Narendra

========================

PT.Kecak DotCom

Jl.Raya Kuta 88R

Kuta – 80361 – Bali – Indonesia

Ph:+62 361 766880/766881/66882

Fax:+62 361 766810

Email:reservation@kecak.com

Website:www.kecak.com

See, they still dare to publish their phone nubmer while Net Send Spammer EndAds.com did dare to do it.

Update Baliforyou.com Appologized Oct 11, 2003

Here is the story.

Went to Shanghai Community Church

Posted on by
113

Believe it or not, this is only the second time I visit a Christian church in my life. 5 years ago, I have been to the church at the Chendu road. It was a Christmas and we rushed to a church just to feel what a Christian evening for Christmas is. It was silly to be there without knowing anything about Christian.

I know in western, most people believe in Christian. That is a major culture shock when people visit China, since the majority of people in China do not believe in God. Actually, people believe in nothing currently. There is a major problem in the current Chinese society because there is no common belief. People did have common believe before 1970’s – the Party. The party was described as more powerful than the God – if you believe in party and show your believe in it, you will get peace. The theory sounds silly recently. However, the rule still lasts that people have religious belief are not permitted to join the Party.

The Shanghai Community Church is located at #53 Henshang Road. It is called Gui Ji Li Bai Tang in Chinese, which can be directly translated into English as International Church. It is one of my most favorite old houses in Shanghai. It was built in 1924.

I went there because my Mom went there this morning. She is a Christian. I drove them to the church before I returned the car to the Car Rental Club. After that, I found I don’t have the key to my door. So I walked 40 minutes along my favorite Hua Shan Road, Huai Hai Rd. West and Heng Shan Rd. to the church. It was a very good experience to walk along these streets in the weekend morning – the Sun was so warm and the streets are clear with less traffic. If it were not to return the car, I will not get up that early since I will typically stay late – so I missed so many wonderful Shanghai morning already.

The Church

I heard there is religious service every Sunday at the church. According to other Christian’s explaination, I went there today is not because of my own decision. It is because the God have chose me and guided me there. Wow. Seems reasonable.

The service starts on 7:30 for the first round and 10:00 AM for the second round. I believe it is a trade-off of traditional time-table and the demands of people. There are not many churches in Shanghai and there are so many Christian.

The church is a very nice one. It is the largest church in Shanghai. With the anthem, people pray before the God. It was a nice experience for me. I am very careful to comment anything related to religion. Although I claim not be believe in any religion, I do respect people who have their religious belief.

The Facial Mask

I notices a old woman sitting near me wore facial mask to come to church today. Later, I saw the second person wearing masks today. Does it mean that fear to SARS come back to the city again? Hope not.

Happy Birthday to Me

Posted on by
10

Happy Birthday to myself. It is my 26th birthday. There is no special programs today, just rent a car and drove the family around the Pudong Area to look for new apartments. After 8:00 PM, I even drove to Sheshan and returned at around 10:00 PM. The places become so near after I got a car. It was such a great accomplishment to cycle to Sheshan before. :-D

First Day Driving Experience

Posted on by
2

After started to learn to drive for 3 months (counting from my first entry on this topic on June 28), I finally rent a car and drove it onto the road, by myself.

The car is so so – a Volkswagen GLi. The good thing is, the discounted price for this one day rent is only 80 RMB. Not bad deal, isn’t it?

map-drive.route-first.day.jpg

© Jian Shuo Wang

Above picture shows the route I drove on the first day – the blue line is the route of the day time and the orange line is the route of the night. :-) The conclusion is, the traffic situation in Shanghai is not that bad.

Taxi, Currency, Credit Card and More…

Posted on by
7

Got an email with questions about Shanghai. I am going to answer the mail in public. Also, I removed all the personal information from the mail before I get confirmation from the sender that he wants his name appear.

The Letter

Dear Jian Shuo,

You have the most informative site I have found about Shanghai in the whole Internet. I really like it very much. Thank for spending so much time and effort for it. We as visitors really appreciate it. I am a little bit sad that the Maglev will only operate on particular days, because when I read your news yesterday I thought from today on it would be running permanently. We will be arriving on the 13th October, so we will not have a chance to use it to get into town, right? Just some questions, if you have the time:

  • We will have to get to the Sheraton Grand Tai Ping Yang Hotel, Zunyi Nan Road. Would you recommend to take a taxi to get there? How much will it cost approximately? Will it be okay if I show the taxi driver the reservation confirmation of the hotel which shows the name of the hotel (but not the road!) in Chinese and Latin letters. I am asking because I had some kind of trouble in Beijing once and drove trough the town with the taxi for about 3 hours because the driver did not know (or want to know) where my hotel was ;-) …
  • More questions: Is it correct that temperatures for the next 10 days will be around 18 degrees daytime and around 10 degrees night time?
  • Can I also change Euros into Yuan in the Airport? Or only U.S. Dollars?
  • Are there places to change money inside the town?
  • Can I usually pay by credit cards in restaurants and shops?

Oooops – quite a lot of questions, hope I don’t bother you too much.

The Answers

I receive increasing number of this kind of information inquery email everyday. To help more people, I tend to answer them and publish the answer on this site in case others has the same quesitons.

Get to Sheraton Grand Tai Ping Yang Hotel

I highly recommend you to take the Airport No. 3 to the hotel since the terminal stop of the route is exactly at the Sheraton Hotel. It costs only 20 RMB and 90 minutes. To take taxi there, it will costs about 150 – 200 RMB to ge there. However, it should be a little bit faster since the taxi will go via the outter ring road and the elevated highway. So you will not see a single red light on the road. For people going to other places, I will recommend taxi if the cost is not a problem.

Taxi Drivers

During the time of APEC, most taxi drivers were trained to speak at least one hundred sentences of English. However, don’t expect your taxi driver to be able to communicate with you. I believe most taxi drivers know the hotel well and your receipt with the Chinese name will work. If it does not work, be sure to tell the driver the word of “Hong Qiao”, since that area is the most famous area and the area is not large.

Current temperature

Yes. It is true. 10 – 18 degree C. I am still wearing my T-Shirt today, but felt a little bit cold. I believe a shirt will do today. However, it is forecasted that the temperature will goes down – many places in north China has snowed already these days.

Currency Exchange

You can change from many foreign currencies to Renminbi at the Bank of China counter located at the Arrival Hall. I even have a picture for you.

Also, if you check their website at http://www.bank-of-china.com, you can find the current exchange rate as below:

USD 826.46 821.49 828.94

HKD 106.63 105.99 106.95

JPY 7.4509 7.3948 7.4882

EUR 959.31 951.15 962.19

GBP 1377.29 1344.88 1381.43

You can easily exchange your EURO to RMB at any Bank of China branch office. There are some others banks that can exchange currency for you, but the Bank of China is easiest one to find. Look for this logo:

screen-bank.of.china-logo.gif

Credit Card

Most large shopping malls and department stores accept credit card. By large, I mean the store that seems clean and has at least two floors. This is only a rule of thumb. Check with the store or restaurant before you shop or eat there. It is very embarressing if the card does not work.

Also, keep in mind to bring some RMB cash with you since 1) the credit card, especially international credit card may not always work at local machines 2) not all operating staff can operate the international credit card correctly.

I hope I have answered all your questions. I’d also like to repeat there, that by writing to me, you agree that I publish the content of the email to the website. Also understand I am not able to answer all the questions.

China is Sending Man to Space

Posted on by
2

The news of the launch of manned space vehicle was sealed so good that it was announced within two week before the launch. Today, I saw the news report on TV confirming that the first manned space vehicle will be launched between Oct 15 to Oct 17, 2003. Shenzhou V will orbit the earth 14 times on a 21-hour mission.

It is just too good news to be true. I thought it will be a 10 year project just like the Manhattan Project, instead of such a late notice to me. Maybe the project has went on for two or three decade – I was just shocked and cannot believe the first astronaut of China will go to the space immediately.

Good luck to the first astronaut and the space vehicle.

PVG: Maglev Started Carry Passengers

Posted on by
26

Breaking news! Maglev will begin real transportation from tomorrow. It is still the trail operation, but the difference is, from tomorrow, the train will open its door to drop passengers for the first time at Pudong Airport. Before, the Maglev is purely operating for tourist. Passengers has to get on board the train and leave the train at the same station. It will directly return from Pudong Airport back to Long Yang Road after it arrives.

From tomorrow, it will drop passengers at Pudong Airport. This trail operation only opens for six days, namely, Oct 11, 12, 18, 19, 25, 26. The price is 75 RMB and the interval is 20 minutes, starting from 9:20 to 17:20.

Updated Oct 20, 2003

Oh. I forgot to let you know that MagLev begin to PICKUP passengers at Pudong Airport and Drop them off at Luoyang Road. So you can directly go to the Maglev station after you get off your flight. According to Shanghai Morning Post, 90% of the passengers getting on board the Maglev are foreigners. It seems the news goes faster to the ears of the foreigners than to local people.

screen-maglev-schedule.png

Joined A Club to Rent a Car

Posted on by
10

I joined a car club named Coco today. I did got some email asking me about the car club I mentioned in my previous article Eager to Drive Soon. The price of 160 RMB per day for a Volkswagen is definitely a very good price comparing to 300 RMB or more from Avis.

Here is more information about the company if you are interested in:

Location: 601, #27, 1520 Hua Shan Rd., Shanghai

Phone: 021-62805959 Miss Zhang or Li

The rule is, you reserve a car in advance – maybe 5 days before, and get the car between 9:00 – 10:00 AM at their company. Then fill it up with the oil, drive it and return it to the company between 8:30 AM and 9:00 AM. This plan works perfect for me since after I return the car, I can take bus 44 for two stops directly to where I work in the morning.

Of course, I gave them 3800 RMB + 30 RMB (card fee) membership fee. The money will be returned at the end of the year.

Something interesting is, they offer 5 days of on-sale price. You can choose five days within the year to rent a car for 80 RMB only (the Volkswagen). I got an additional coupon when I told her that I was referred by an existing member. She gave me two coupon – one for me and the other is for the referer. :-)

English Research

Posted on by
3

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in

waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht

the frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl

mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do

not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe.

Travel Tips to Hui Zhou

Posted on by
3

People are interested in my photos and travel experience in Hui Zhou. JL wrote to ask for the details of the trip (transportation, accommodation, main attractions ect.). Well. Not surprisingly, I am willing to share with you about the trip.

Hui Zhou 徽州 is in the An Hui Province – west to Jiang Su Province (where Nanjing, Suzhou and Wuxi are located) and Shanghai.

Transportation

I took train K818/K819 from Shanghai to Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain) Station. The train left Shanghai at 20:05 and arrived around 7:00 AM. It is very nice arrangement since you can sleep on the train and begin your tour to the amazing county immediately after you get off the train. One tip you need to remember is, the train numbers K818 and K819 are referring to the same train. According to the train numbering convention, all trains leaving Beijing are numbered with odd number and trains going to the direction of Beijing are numbered with even number. However, the train from Shanghai to Huang Shan will first goes northwest, making it moving close to Beijing (it is numbered K818 at that range). After it passes Nanjing, it will move southwest toward the direction away from Beijing. So on that range of railway, it is called K819.

The returning train is numbered with the same rule – K820/K817. It leaves Huang Shan around 20:00 and arrives Shanghai at 7:00 AM next day. If you are curious about the meaning of K, I can tell you it means Kuai in Chinese or Express Train in English.

Accommodation

If you go to the villages I visited, please don’t expect any modern hotels there. However, it is a great experience to stay for one night or two in the accident houses that were built carefully 300-400 years ago.

Remember this door I showed yesterday?

It is the door of the bedroom we stayed. The name is Shu Ren Tang 树仁堂. It is located in Hongcun. We were so excited to get a room in the accident house. The bed and the cabinet are exactly those used hundreds of years ago. They are still solid and look nice. This house is also famous and printed in many brochures. We were wakened up by the tour guides who use their big speaker to introduce the history of the house to groups of tourist. They were so amazed to see us opening the door and came out. Some of them asked: “Do you live here?” I replied with proud: “Sure….”, “for one night.” :-) I paid 40 RMB (5 USD) for the night. It was such a great experience for me. Their phone is 0599-5541009.

Attractions

In the last two dynasty, namely Ming and Qing, the Hui Zhou area were super rich and powerful. The businessmen came out from the area enjoyed largest share of the China’s market and bring money back to their hometown.

黟县

西递 Xidi – the World Heritage

宏村 Hongcun – the World Heritage

卢村 – There is a large wood-carving house. Very impressive

木坑 – The bamboo where Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon were taken

屯溪 – the transportation hub for all the other spot of scenes.

歙县 – for the Pai Fang

棠樾 – for a lot of large Memorial Archway (Paifang)

呈坎 – for Bao Lun Ge and the village

Returned from Huizhou (Huang Shan) Trip

Posted on by
8

We finally returned to Shanghai today after the four day trip to Hui Zhou. We planned to go to Huang Shan (the Yellow Mountain) but changed our route to visit the villages near Huang Shan instead. The places I visited include a lot of villages with strange names. I cannot read some of the characters in the names. They are (in Chinese and Pinyin)

黟县 西递 宏村 卢村 木坑 屯溪 歙县 棠樾 呈坎

Yixian Xidi Hongcun Lucun Mukeng Tunxi Shexian Tangyue Chengkan

huizhou.hongcun-moon.pool-curve.side.jpg

At Hongcun. The village before the Moon Pool, which is the place that on the post stamp with value of 0.08 RMB – the most popular post stamp in China for more than one decade.

huizhou.hongcun-moon.pool-stamp.building.jpg

Hongcun – before the moon pool.

huizhou.hongcun-village-before.nanhu.jpg

Hongcun before the Nan Hu (the South Lake)

huizhou.mukeng-village.in.wood.jpg

The village in the bamboo sea… It is called Mu Keng.

huizhou.xidi-kill.pig-poster.jpg

Poster saying “We will kill our pig on the Moon Festival. Those who want to buy meat, please come to my house to buy. – Sept 1, 2003”

huizhou.xidi-the.village-overview.jpg

Xidi. Seen from the hill nearby.

huizhou.xidi-wood.building-from.second.floor.jpg

The wood building of Xidi.

huangshan-locks.after.locks-lianhua.peak.jpg

Locks on the Lian Hua Peak of Huang Shan. People will buy pairs of the lock, carve their names on it and lock them together in Huang Shan. After that, people will through the keys off the cliff – it is said that by looking the door together, the two will be together for the whole life. I believe it is true since Wendy and I put our lock there serveral years ago…

huizhou.chengkan-bao.lun.ge.jpg

Bao Lun Ge – the largest memorial temple in Cheng Kan.

huizhou.hongcun-shops-at.night.jpg

Shops at night in Hong Cun.

huizhou.hongcun-west.house-stayed.for.night.jpg

This is the door of my room in the “hotel”. It was an incrediable experience to have stayed for one night there.

huizhou.tunxi-yilou-night.jpg

The No. 1 Restaurant at Lao Jie in Tun Xi. It is a very nice restaurant with 30 RMB per person average. We had our dinner everyday there. Highly recommend.

huizhou.yixian-carved.bricks-on.door.jpg

This is the brick-carving on the top of the door of each house. You can find this kind of carving anywhere in the area.

Mandarin or Shanghaiese?

Posted on by
28

Question from Mike looks like this

Hi there Shanghi blogger …

My name is Mike and I am very seriously considering moving to China for a year or two. I had decided to move to Beijing but am now considering Shanghi because it is the business hub of China and a more modern city.

I have been taking classes from a tutor in Mandarin but I understand the people of Shanghi speak a different language – a derivative of cantonese I think.

My question to you is what language should I learn if I move to Shanghi ? If I learn Mandarin will I be able to speak to people in Shanghi ? My barber is a Chinese woman from Shanghi ans she says she speaks Mandarin but in a way that makes it difficult to communicate with people in Beijing because the accents ( tones ) are so different.

I would really appreciate any input you can give me on the languages in China and specifically in Shanghi.

Thanks,

Mike

Well. I would definitely suggest you to learn Mandarin, not the local Shanghai dialect – or Shanghainese. It is true that Shanghainese are different from the Mandarin. But almost all the people you can reach can speak Mandarin but not all speak Shanghainese.

Taking me as an example, I don’t speak Shanghainese and can hardly understand Shanghainese, but that does not infect my life. It is a nice place to live.

Unlike Cantonese, Shanghainese is only used in Shanghai, not even in nearby cities like Hangzhou and Suzhou. So it will be almost useless if you go out of Shanghai…

Hope it helps.

P.S. This entry is created on Oct 9, 2003, not the date listed above.

PVG: Meeting Place in Pudong Airport

Posted on by
12

If you and your friend arrive in Pudong Airport on different flight and you want to meet him/her/them, but you don’t know where is the best place to wait because you may not be able to use your mobile phone to communicate, this article is right for you.

Unlike other airport, Pudong Airport is designed that all the international flight passengers pass the same custom inspection gate, then down to the luggage claim area. Then, guess what, they will all come out of the luggage claim area through the same gate.

So the gate is the best place to pick up another passenger. Check this page:

http://wangjianshuo.com/personal/places/pudongairport/Arrival.htm

The gate is shown in the picture below:

The two persons were waiting for their friends coming out of the gate. Below is the picture looking into the gate when it is open – you can directly see the luggage claim area.

Wait there and you will not miss anybody coming from outside China (including Hong Kong, and Macau) to Shanghai via PVG. Please note that the domestic and international sections of the airport are seperate and there is a domestic arrival gate for domestic arrival like this too.

There will typically be a lot of people waiting there and the gate will be crowded. Lots of them will holding a large name plate for the friend they will pickup.

If you don’t feel safe enough, you can agree to meet at certain gate. For example, gate 18 is a good choice since it is just at the opposite side of the arrival gate.

PVG: Has Maglev Started Operation?

Posted on by
20

Dear Mr. Wang:

I came across you website and found it quite helpful. Thank you for all the information.

You mentioned that the Maglev train to airport will be operating in October 2003.

1. Do you have any updated information as to if it is already in service, if not when exactly.

2. Where does the service run between? both ways, or only one way from the airport.

3. If I stayed in a downtown hotel, like the Peace hotel, Is it a good idea to ride the train and transfer to a taxi after the train? or I’d be better off just getting a taxi from the airport.

Thank you.

Robin

Robin,

Thanks for the questions. Maybe infected by the recent accident in the construction of the maglev, the operation date has been postponed. There is no settled operation date yet. So the date Oct, 2003 is no longer accurate.

Below are the photos of the Maglev I took before. I personally love the photos very much.

https://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20030809_pudong_airport_maglev_in_depth.htm

For the second question, the designed service is, of cause, both way – from the airport to Longyang Rd. and return. But currently, it opens for tourists only and not formal operation.

According to Sina.com, two trains were put into operation in the National Holiday. One has 5 carts and the other has 6 carts. The capacity is 10,000 people per day.

However, don’t expect to take a ride if you come to Shanghai Pudong Airport. It opens for tourists only. That is, it will start from the Longyang Rd. Station, rush to Pudong Airport and return immediately without opening the door. People will get onboard the train and leave the train at the same place – Longyang Road Station.

So the answer for the third question is no. The plan is just impossible since you cannot get on board the Maglev at Pudong Airport Station. You need to wait until the Maglev start formal operation.

Note: This entry is created on Oct 7, 2003, not on the date displayed.