the saga of the tiny chair
well, not quite. i'm sitting in the (i seem to be fond of the phrase "i'm sitting in...") business centre at shanghai pudong airport, which lends a nice symmetry to this trip since i was in here when we arrived in shanghai. i slept much of the train ride, which made it seem very short. in fact, i slept a lot - i went to sleep at 9 and woke up at 6am. yeah. in my defense it was a rather fitful sleep; i don't know why. hopefully i'll be able to sleep on the flight back, because i sure don't have 14 hours of stuff to entertain myself, and the in-flight entertainment on the way here was unconscionably terrible.
so more on the train ride. well, i had intended to take the bus-and-subway route (#632 to chengfu lu, #726 to wudaokuo light rail station, then wudaokuo to beijing railway station on line 2), but - and i think you can see this coming - i didn't. i figured that i had hazed myself enough with the trip there, and i could tell that it was pretty humid outside by the lack of visibility through the haze - the weather forecast was rain. so i took a taxi instead, not wanting to transport myself in rain. also, the thought of braving both the transportation system and the train station, reputed to be a madhouse, was less than attractive.
but first, a brief digression. i was supposed to leave the key (one of those neat star-shaped keys which has a cross-shaped cross-section, ie, a key on two axes) at the front desk for vicky and pete. vicky even gave me a plastic badge thingy with her photo in it so they would take it. but, take it they did not. i attempted to mime me leaving and the fact that the key was my friend's, in fact, my friend who lived in the building, but it was all for naught. the doorman and the cleaning lady who were in the lobby both smiled at me with that "silly foreigners!" smile, and then the doorman went to get someone else. who also didn't understand me, and went to get someone else. who, yes, also didn't understand me. so another doorman took me to the other building across the way, and indicated that we should go downstairs to the basement. umm...yeah, i don't think it was as sketchy as it sounds, but i'm still not going into any basement with a guy i can't understand, and who can't understand me. since i had little faith in the probability that i would be able to leave the key for vicky and pete, i left. possibly rude, possibly not the right thing to do, but, dear readers, it was the only way out - my window of chance.
and now back to the train station. i stopped across from the station and had some truly awful chinese fast food at an orange-and-black-bedecked place next to a supermarket. oh, baozi/jaozi place next to vicky's building, how i missed you! i was going to grab baozi from there before i left, but i thought the doorman might see me and detain me again. anyway, i bought some cookies for the train ride and headed over to the train station. the train station is bordered by a wide street, so you have to take the pedestrian walkway. this pedestrian walkway was the most crowded i've seen, which is to say that it's crowded like a bus or a subway car. then my attention to the crowd was momentarily diverted by a vision. not just any vision; a vision of TINY CHAIRS. jessica and v, you know how diligently i've been looking for a tiny chair. before this, the only places i had seen them was in every single freaking store and marketplace in china! the whole population is sitting on them, but i couldn't find any for sale! it's like they're laughing at us tourists. anyway, it figures that there would be people selling tiny chairs outside the train station, since there are lots of people sitting on them while they wait...outside the train station (i dunno why outside - it smells worse and it's hotter).
i didn't buy one. my rational mind kicked in and wondered, well, how much will it be? it's probably expensive. especially since it's an in-demand product outside the station, it'll jack up the price even more! besides, how will it stand up to use and weight? it might be really flimsy. and then i walked past the dude selling them.
i spent a couple hours sitting on my suitcase right outside the entrance to the station, watching people go by, and kicking myself mentally for not buying my darling tiny chair. though it's sometimes a trickle, there's always a flow into the station, which is weird because once you get into the station, it's not that crowded. where do all of the people go?! anyway, once i (hold on - there's a french dude at the computer next to me...mmm, french accents) got inside, i wandered my confused way to the waiting area on the second floor. but where was i supposed to wait? obviously not many tourists take the train if they're not in a tour group, because there's very little english and even less information about how to get around the station. so i wandered around the way, and looked idly at some stuff a vendor was selling along a railing. as my eyes swept to the end of the cubicles, i saw them. TINY CHAIRS. you better believe i was going to buy one, regardless of how expensive it was. luckily, it was only 15 kwai, and i bet they expected me to bargain, but for 15 kwai, whatever. i bought myself a nice black-and-metal tiny chair. then, when i got to the platform (6) where my train was going to depart from, i started mentally kicking myself for not buying one of those ubiquitous green-and-plastic tiny chairs too...
which i'm still doing. but maybe i can find one around the airport - i do have 6 more hours until i need to go wait for my plane. ok, just a little bit about the train. like a good chinese person, i pushed my way down to the platform and booked it towards the first car, where my seat was. after a little confusion, i figured (with the help of the only chinese person who speaks english i met that day) that my seat was in the first compartment. my three compartment-mates were upper-middle-class youngish people - two girls and a guy. the girls seemed kind of snobbish, the guy was your regular chinese dude. all were nice and safe to spend the 12-hour train ride with, though, so i did indeed sleep most of the way. and now i'm so close to being home, i can almost smell it.
so more on the train ride. well, i had intended to take the bus-and-subway route (#632 to chengfu lu, #726 to wudaokuo light rail station, then wudaokuo to beijing railway station on line 2), but - and i think you can see this coming - i didn't. i figured that i had hazed myself enough with the trip there, and i could tell that it was pretty humid outside by the lack of visibility through the haze - the weather forecast was rain. so i took a taxi instead, not wanting to transport myself in rain. also, the thought of braving both the transportation system and the train station, reputed to be a madhouse, was less than attractive.
but first, a brief digression. i was supposed to leave the key (one of those neat star-shaped keys which has a cross-shaped cross-section, ie, a key on two axes) at the front desk for vicky and pete. vicky even gave me a plastic badge thingy with her photo in it so they would take it. but, take it they did not. i attempted to mime me leaving and the fact that the key was my friend's, in fact, my friend who lived in the building, but it was all for naught. the doorman and the cleaning lady who were in the lobby both smiled at me with that "silly foreigners!" smile, and then the doorman went to get someone else. who also didn't understand me, and went to get someone else. who, yes, also didn't understand me. so another doorman took me to the other building across the way, and indicated that we should go downstairs to the basement. umm...yeah, i don't think it was as sketchy as it sounds, but i'm still not going into any basement with a guy i can't understand, and who can't understand me. since i had little faith in the probability that i would be able to leave the key for vicky and pete, i left. possibly rude, possibly not the right thing to do, but, dear readers, it was the only way out - my window of chance.
and now back to the train station. i stopped across from the station and had some truly awful chinese fast food at an orange-and-black-bedecked place next to a supermarket. oh, baozi/jaozi place next to vicky's building, how i missed you! i was going to grab baozi from there before i left, but i thought the doorman might see me and detain me again. anyway, i bought some cookies for the train ride and headed over to the train station. the train station is bordered by a wide street, so you have to take the pedestrian walkway. this pedestrian walkway was the most crowded i've seen, which is to say that it's crowded like a bus or a subway car. then my attention to the crowd was momentarily diverted by a vision. not just any vision; a vision of TINY CHAIRS. jessica and v, you know how diligently i've been looking for a tiny chair. before this, the only places i had seen them was in every single freaking store and marketplace in china! the whole population is sitting on them, but i couldn't find any for sale! it's like they're laughing at us tourists. anyway, it figures that there would be people selling tiny chairs outside the train station, since there are lots of people sitting on them while they wait...outside the train station (i dunno why outside - it smells worse and it's hotter).
i didn't buy one. my rational mind kicked in and wondered, well, how much will it be? it's probably expensive. especially since it's an in-demand product outside the station, it'll jack up the price even more! besides, how will it stand up to use and weight? it might be really flimsy. and then i walked past the dude selling them.
i spent a couple hours sitting on my suitcase right outside the entrance to the station, watching people go by, and kicking myself mentally for not buying my darling tiny chair. though it's sometimes a trickle, there's always a flow into the station, which is weird because once you get into the station, it's not that crowded. where do all of the people go?! anyway, once i (hold on - there's a french dude at the computer next to me...mmm, french accents) got inside, i wandered my confused way to the waiting area on the second floor. but where was i supposed to wait? obviously not many tourists take the train if they're not in a tour group, because there's very little english and even less information about how to get around the station. so i wandered around the way, and looked idly at some stuff a vendor was selling along a railing. as my eyes swept to the end of the cubicles, i saw them. TINY CHAIRS. you better believe i was going to buy one, regardless of how expensive it was. luckily, it was only 15 kwai, and i bet they expected me to bargain, but for 15 kwai, whatever. i bought myself a nice black-and-metal tiny chair. then, when i got to the platform (6) where my train was going to depart from, i started mentally kicking myself for not buying one of those ubiquitous green-and-plastic tiny chairs too...
which i'm still doing. but maybe i can find one around the airport - i do have 6 more hours until i need to go wait for my plane. ok, just a little bit about the train. like a good chinese person, i pushed my way down to the platform and booked it towards the first car, where my seat was. after a little confusion, i figured (with the help of the only chinese person who speaks english i met that day) that my seat was in the first compartment. my three compartment-mates were upper-middle-class youngish people - two girls and a guy. the girls seemed kind of snobbish, the guy was your regular chinese dude. all were nice and safe to spend the 12-hour train ride with, though, so i did indeed sleep most of the way. and now i'm so close to being home, i can almost smell it.
posted by awol at 7:56 AM
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