On a whirlwind tour of the Pacific Ocean, I found myself in the Shanghai Pudong Airport once again. This time I’m spending the night in Shanghai before flying away tomorrow morning and decided to take the subway (Metro Line 2) from the airport to try it out instead of hiring a driver.
In T2, the International Terminal, there’s plenty of signage pointing jet lagged and weary passengers in the right direction. Before entering the subway I had to find a ticket machine to buy a one-way pass as I don’t have a Shanghai metro card yet. To my relief I had a small bank note, otherwise I’d be out of luck as the machines take coins and bank notes no larger than 10元 (~$1.35).
With my ticket in hand I proceeded to pass the metro security guards — and I’m still unsure what their purpose is as I walked though the non-functioning metal detector with lots of metal on me and not even a blink from the guards — and down to the subway platform. So far so good! The train arrived, I boarded, and even managed to get a seat which is a rarity in Shanghai as the metro is always jammed packed.
And that’s when things changed. I got on the right train headed in the right direction. For some unknown and purely Chinese reason, the line stops 1/4 the way towards the end and you need to get out, cross a platform, and board the exact same metro line to continue. If the announcement was said in my car, I completely missed it and was taken a bit back when the train started moving in the wrong direction! Perhaps all the passengers exiting with their suitcases should’ve been a clue?
Backtracking one stop and getting on the next train in the other direction added about 20 mins to my trip. Not too bad, but definitely not happy times. When the end of the line was reached I exited with the rest of the pack in something that can only be described as a herd of wildebeests crossing a crocodile laden river during their biannual migration. Yes, it was that crazy, full of people pushing and shoving, tossing baggage everywhere to hop in the train car that was 5 meters (15 feet) away! The subway station must record this event and put it up on the Chinese equivalent of YouTube as it’s that amazing.
Tomorrow when I head back to the airport I’ll take the subway once again, this time fully knowing about the transfer and hopefully able to do it correctly!