farewell!
i haven't calculated the exact number of hours i will be in transit between now and when i arrive back in boston at midnight monday night, but it'll be long. it involves the flight itself, which is about 18 hours, plus the 12-hour train ride from beijing to shanghai, and some lengthy waits in between. i'm leaving in about an hour, on what promises to be a somewhat bewildering, somewhat exciting trip through the madhouse beijing railway station in a country where i don't speak the language, with a ticket i can't really read. silly me forgot to ask how to read the ticket, and general etiquette of the train, although by some google searching i was able to figure out what car and berth i'm in.
i've largely spent the last couple of days loafing about. it's kind of nice: with nothing planned, i just walked around. the one drawback was that the day i picked to walk around (friday) was dry but windy, which means that dust was blowing around the entire time i was out. by the time i got back home, after maybe four hours or so, i was more than ready for some less polluted air. i can't tell you how excited i am to be returning to the land of less pollution. how the city will manage to get the air clean enough for the olympics is beyond me. i, for one, wonder how much pollution is caused by the traffic on the ring roads during rush hour (morning and evening), when there are thousands of cars idling and emitting noxious fumes. anyway, back to friday. i tried to find the mall that tony told me about last weekend, but i failed. the area i went to (it's the second stop on the light rail line 13, going north from shizhimen) was kind of sparsely populated, probably because of the huge roads bisecting it, so there wasn't really anyone to ask. first time i've seen a part of the city with so few people in it! anyway, i decided to give up after walking around for an hour, taking refuge in none other but the walmart supercenter.
the walmart supercenter is located next to a line 13 stop - the signs in the station actually have the station name, then "walmart supercenter" underneath them. there's an entrance to the store from the train station, although it's kind of out of the way (the station is kind of miserable anyway, since the two entrances bridge over a highway). so you go up a long flight of stairs, through an open area that looks like a parking garage but is just empty, then down a hallway, to get to the top floor of the store. walmart looks more generic than it does in the US - there are none of the big signs about falling prices, or rolling prices, or whatever it is that they do in the states. actually, it reminds me a lot of target, with the signage, cleanliness, mod-ness, and audience to which it's catering. however, it's not quite as hip as target is - i guess that's where the walmart part comes in? (sorry. couldn't resist.) it still has some cool stuff, though no folding tiny chair like i was hoping to find. instead of escalators, the stores has moving sidewalks on an incline, like in the lotus center. this is an ingenious invention, because it allows the store to place items along both sides of the moving sidewalk, thus prompting more impulse purchases. the sidewalk is moving so slowly that you have ample time to eye the goods placed right under your nose.
so i bought a few things - a fountain pen that came with a bottle of ink for 8 yuan, a water bottle that comes with a freezer pack that plugs into the top so your drink is cooled for you, a bottle of wine, etc. i tried to pay with my american credit card, and the cashier recognized the visa logo, but nothing else. my request went through several levels of cashier before i was escorted to the main checkout floor (the middle floor of three), where they swiped my card as if it were nothing special. probably would've helped if i could have spoken chinese, but i was surprised they accepted it in the end.
alright, time to prep myself for a couple of hours of lugging my huge suitcase everywhere. as it happens, it doesn't really have anything in it that i don't need or can't replace easily, so really i have no idea why i'm still carrying it around. i mean, i guess i don't want to lose some of these clothes, but i packed stuff i wouldn't care losing anyway - all the important stuff is in my backpack. when i think about it, i have surprisingly little very important stuff, since it all fits into my backpack, which is your standard dealio. right - time for some more dumplings downstairs, next to the apartment building...see you in the states. (p.s. i promise to add the posts from study tours that are missing, when i get back.)
i've largely spent the last couple of days loafing about. it's kind of nice: with nothing planned, i just walked around. the one drawback was that the day i picked to walk around (friday) was dry but windy, which means that dust was blowing around the entire time i was out. by the time i got back home, after maybe four hours or so, i was more than ready for some less polluted air. i can't tell you how excited i am to be returning to the land of less pollution. how the city will manage to get the air clean enough for the olympics is beyond me. i, for one, wonder how much pollution is caused by the traffic on the ring roads during rush hour (morning and evening), when there are thousands of cars idling and emitting noxious fumes. anyway, back to friday. i tried to find the mall that tony told me about last weekend, but i failed. the area i went to (it's the second stop on the light rail line 13, going north from shizhimen) was kind of sparsely populated, probably because of the huge roads bisecting it, so there wasn't really anyone to ask. first time i've seen a part of the city with so few people in it! anyway, i decided to give up after walking around for an hour, taking refuge in none other but the walmart supercenter.
the walmart supercenter is located next to a line 13 stop - the signs in the station actually have the station name, then "walmart supercenter" underneath them. there's an entrance to the store from the train station, although it's kind of out of the way (the station is kind of miserable anyway, since the two entrances bridge over a highway). so you go up a long flight of stairs, through an open area that looks like a parking garage but is just empty, then down a hallway, to get to the top floor of the store. walmart looks more generic than it does in the US - there are none of the big signs about falling prices, or rolling prices, or whatever it is that they do in the states. actually, it reminds me a lot of target, with the signage, cleanliness, mod-ness, and audience to which it's catering. however, it's not quite as hip as target is - i guess that's where the walmart part comes in? (sorry. couldn't resist.) it still has some cool stuff, though no folding tiny chair like i was hoping to find. instead of escalators, the stores has moving sidewalks on an incline, like in the lotus center. this is an ingenious invention, because it allows the store to place items along both sides of the moving sidewalk, thus prompting more impulse purchases. the sidewalk is moving so slowly that you have ample time to eye the goods placed right under your nose.
so i bought a few things - a fountain pen that came with a bottle of ink for 8 yuan, a water bottle that comes with a freezer pack that plugs into the top so your drink is cooled for you, a bottle of wine, etc. i tried to pay with my american credit card, and the cashier recognized the visa logo, but nothing else. my request went through several levels of cashier before i was escorted to the main checkout floor (the middle floor of three), where they swiped my card as if it were nothing special. probably would've helped if i could have spoken chinese, but i was surprised they accepted it in the end.
alright, time to prep myself for a couple of hours of lugging my huge suitcase everywhere. as it happens, it doesn't really have anything in it that i don't need or can't replace easily, so really i have no idea why i'm still carrying it around. i mean, i guess i don't want to lose some of these clothes, but i packed stuff i wouldn't care losing anyway - all the important stuff is in my backpack. when i think about it, i have surprisingly little very important stuff, since it all fits into my backpack, which is your standard dealio. right - time for some more dumplings downstairs, next to the apartment building...see you in the states. (p.s. i promise to add the posts from study tours that are missing, when i get back.)
posted by awol at 1:07 AM
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