Last Friday Natalie and I took our first trip on the Metro, or subway. It was beautiful weather here in Shanghai all last week, so we thought we would get out and seem some sights. We laid out the map in the morning and I showed Natalie where we would catch the subway and where the subway would go. Our destination was Xin Tiandi, a new eating and shopping outdoor mall. I knew the subway was relatively close to the mall so we wouldn't have to walk too far once we arrived. Our first challenge came in finding a place to park once we got to the Museum of Science of Technology. There is a metro station there, but I couldn't find anywhere that didn't have a "no bikes" sign. Though everyone was ignoring the signs anyway. I found a decent spot near an entrance where I could lock onto a handrail. And then I crossed my fingers that it would be there when we returned. So down the stairs to the station. It so happens that station also houses a street market inside. For anyone who is familiar with Shanghai, this is where part of the old Xiangang Clothing Market relocated to. Xiangang was a huge outdoor market where all sorts of cheap designer and brand name clothes and items were sold. It was shut down last summer and relocated to two official designations, one near Nanjing road and the other at the Metro station near the museum. Hopefully Natalie and I will make it back to the market there sometime this week.
The first thing we had to do was purchase our tickets. The metro system is shanghai is very easy to use, they have machines that can give you a ticket based upon your selection of the end station. And all of them can be done in English. You just touch the screen of your final destination, and voila, it calculates your fare. So we got our tickets and headed down into the station itself. Natalie was thrilled with the idea that it runs under the ground. I showed her how to know which side to stand on. And I made sure to pay special attention as I myself one time got on the wrong way. But you learn through mistakes like that! All I had to do was get off and go back the other way. No big deal!!! So we got on and headed west towards downtown. It was not very crowded until we got closer to downtown. And Natalie is quite the Chinese conversation piece when we do something like that. People touch her and talk about her, I hope they are saying nice things, all the time. Not a lot of light haired, blue eyed children on the metro! We got off at our destination, Haungpi Nan Lu. We walked a few blocks until we reached the Starbucks. Yes, there are Starbucks everywhere here! We found a good French restaurant for lunch and sat outside eating our lunch and watching people walk by. Xin Tiandi is a great place for people watching as it is an interesting mix of business, expatriates, tourists, and locals. After lunch we walked around a bit, Natalie bought some postcards to mail back home, and we headed off. Back on the subway the way we came. And our bike was there when we returned!
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