Today's weather: High = 9 Low = 2
Sunny
Starting off the year 2012 with riding motorcycles, it's the way to go. Enjoyed an epic ride on Jan 1, included two long highways in and out of Jiangsu province. This is actually the part of the province that is further north of Dianshan Lake, within the borders of Kunshan City.
It turns out that Dianshan Lake is a huge freshwater lake that provides most of Shanghai's drinking water. The landmass north of the lake belongs to Jiangsu province, while the land south is part of Shanghai province. Interestingly enough, the checkpoint and border situation on the north side of the lake is a joke. Just ride the unregistered bikes across the main provincial border and the policeman who is supposed to checking registration is sleeping in his office. He doesn't care, neither do I. A major contrast to the south of the lake where stealth tactics and backroads need to be used to get past the checkpoints in that section.
Unfortunately my financial situation is still on the tight side, so will defer the purchase of a Yamaha YBR-250 until after the May holidays. Meanwhile, for another week at least, the mild weather will hold out and it is scootering all the way. That helped big time on New Years Eve when I came back from a late-night church service and countdown (yes, such things do exist). All along Hengshan Road, the main street in Shanghai, it was flanked with crowds of people desperate for a taxi. Meanwhile I blew past them all on my scooter, honking the air horn, to wish them a happy new year.
In most cities of the world, they run the public transit until the wee hours in order that people can get home safely on NYE. This is especially important to discourage drunk driving and heaven forbid, drunken scooter riding. But not so in China, where they stop the subway running at 11pm, even on New Years. Meanwhile, this leaves huge numbers of crowds fighting for a taxi and the drivers of course does not use the meter. The price is inflated big time. It got so bad a few years ago when I was living in Songjiang, that I ended up sleeping on a park bench downtown that night and waiting until 6am for the public transit to start up again. When I finally got home that morning, I said I hated China. But it was my fault for not bringing my scooter downtown that night, even when it was freezing cold. Since that day, I've never taken cabs or public transit on New Years Eve.
I finally asked my local friends why they stop the subway so early in Shanghai. Line #1 goes until 11pm, but most lines stop before that, on average around 10pm. They said it's because the government can make a lot of money from the taxi fares at night. Taxi companies are state owned, duh. Since the fares increase significantly from 11pm to 5am, and since people won't take taxis unless there are no other options, then the government would lose money if the subway kept running until 1am or 2am as it does in every other major world city.
On a more general note, this sparked a long discussion with both expat and local friends over dinner on the realities of locked-down dormitories at night, strict curfews for university students, and the overall frustration of how inconvenient it is at night because of a strict sense of shutting things down around 10 or 11pm and guards everywhere. For this reason among others I avoid on-campus housing like the plague, as a teacher, and choose to live off-campus.
As for the weather, it's been real good over the last week. However, a week later it is going to freeze over and snow is in the forecast. With only 12 days to go before hitting Thailand, I sure hope it's not a repeat of last year where the snow canceled the flights out. Will just have to see what happens.
Sunny
Starting off the year 2012 with riding motorcycles, it's the way to go. Enjoyed an epic ride on Jan 1, included two long highways in and out of Jiangsu province. This is actually the part of the province that is further north of Dianshan Lake, within the borders of Kunshan City.
It turns out that Dianshan Lake is a huge freshwater lake that provides most of Shanghai's drinking water. The landmass north of the lake belongs to Jiangsu province, while the land south is part of Shanghai province. Interestingly enough, the checkpoint and border situation on the north side of the lake is a joke. Just ride the unregistered bikes across the main provincial border and the policeman who is supposed to checking registration is sleeping in his office. He doesn't care, neither do I. A major contrast to the south of the lake where stealth tactics and backroads need to be used to get past the checkpoints in that section.
Unfortunately my financial situation is still on the tight side, so will defer the purchase of a Yamaha YBR-250 until after the May holidays. Meanwhile, for another week at least, the mild weather will hold out and it is scootering all the way. That helped big time on New Years Eve when I came back from a late-night church service and countdown (yes, such things do exist). All along Hengshan Road, the main street in Shanghai, it was flanked with crowds of people desperate for a taxi. Meanwhile I blew past them all on my scooter, honking the air horn, to wish them a happy new year.
In most cities of the world, they run the public transit until the wee hours in order that people can get home safely on NYE. This is especially important to discourage drunk driving and heaven forbid, drunken scooter riding. But not so in China, where they stop the subway running at 11pm, even on New Years. Meanwhile, this leaves huge numbers of crowds fighting for a taxi and the drivers of course does not use the meter. The price is inflated big time. It got so bad a few years ago when I was living in Songjiang, that I ended up sleeping on a park bench downtown that night and waiting until 6am for the public transit to start up again. When I finally got home that morning, I said I hated China. But it was my fault for not bringing my scooter downtown that night, even when it was freezing cold. Since that day, I've never taken cabs or public transit on New Years Eve.
I finally asked my local friends why they stop the subway so early in Shanghai. Line #1 goes until 11pm, but most lines stop before that, on average around 10pm. They said it's because the government can make a lot of money from the taxi fares at night. Taxi companies are state owned, duh. Since the fares increase significantly from 11pm to 5am, and since people won't take taxis unless there are no other options, then the government would lose money if the subway kept running until 1am or 2am as it does in every other major world city.
On a more general note, this sparked a long discussion with both expat and local friends over dinner on the realities of locked-down dormitories at night, strict curfews for university students, and the overall frustration of how inconvenient it is at night because of a strict sense of shutting things down around 10 or 11pm and guards everywhere. For this reason among others I avoid on-campus housing like the plague, as a teacher, and choose to live off-campus.
As for the weather, it's been real good over the last week. However, a week later it is going to freeze over and snow is in the forecast. With only 12 days to go before hitting Thailand, I sure hope it's not a repeat of last year where the snow canceled the flights out. Will just have to see what happens.
No comments:
Post a Comment