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Standing in a Train? No... AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I am also planning to do a little train travel over the Spring Festival time. I hope I will be able to get tickets. |
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The Changing Shanghai Shanghai is absolutely changing at a rapid pace. I think if you come here frequently you can notice the changes.... Let's see my first trip to Shanghai was in Summer 2003. We stayed in a hotel at Zhongshan Park.... at that time there was a metro station and the pizza hut, but we did not go further past the metrostation so I dont really remember what was there. I remember walking along Changning Lu and it was filled with places to buy constuction supplies and men in shops just wearing their underwear. We stayed at the Jinjang (something like that) hotel and outside there was a huge construction site and lots of noise.... Fast forward to 2005 when I was looking to move to a new apartment in Shanghai and one of the places we looked at was in view from the hotel window... granted 2 years to build some apartments is not so amazing. So we moved to Shanghai in Summer of 2004. Our first apartment was on Wanping Lu near Huahai Zhong Lu. There was some hotel across the street. I clearly remember there were some buildings on our street that were torn down and a few weeks later there was a grassy area complete with trees where those buildings had been. It was that moment when I was amazed by the speed of changes in Shanghai. I also worked at Jiaotong University at that time... now when I see the campus it is constantly changing. It seems it has almost doubled in size in the last 2 years. I was working in the foreign language building (my office was there) and beyond my office there really wasnt much of anything... Now there is another half of campus beyond my former office. Hua Shi Da across the street is also growing quickly. I also notice more and more changes around Zhongshan Park. When we first took our kid there to play, I dont remember there being much to do or look at. Within 2 years there is a giant shopping mall open (which is constantly getting new shops). 4 starbucks in the area have come, a Papa John's, a few Aijisen Ramens, and also another electronics store and a Carefour. In just the time we have lived in this 3rd apartment of ours... so for about a year and a half. Also Line 4 opened AND Line 2 was just extended. I think Line 3 is quite new as well. I am not so excited about the opening of Line 2 extension. It is nice to live at the end of the subway line. Shanghai is going to continue to change. To some extent, I wonder about the old buildings in Shanghai and if there are people going to great measures to preserve them. I hope they preserve enough of the "old" shanghai and that it doesnt just become a huge mass of new buildings that all look alike more or less.... I also think that the young people in Shanghai dont know what it means to not have such a constant state of change. I wonder if they realize they are living at a special time in a great city's history. I also wonder about Dubai. I hear it is also developing rapidly. |