Train to Nanjing

      We made it from Shanghai to Nanjing with ease.  Terry has taken the train between various Chinese cities a few times, though he's always had a Chinese colleague escort.  This was my first inter-city trip on a Chinese train. The hotel concierge in Shanghai had written out a few characters on a card with the information we'd need to buy our tickets, telling us that the ticket agent at the Hongqiao train station would speak only Mandarin.   Nice surprise:  once we figured out which ticket line to stand in (with the help of a couple of friendly English-speaking Chinese travelers) and we made our way up to the window, we discovered that the agent did indeed speak English.  We got our tickets without a hitch, 140 RMB (about $22) each for our one-way tickets.  There was lots of signage in English around the station, and there was an English version of every announcement on the train--perfect syntax, no accent.  In addition, I was very pleased that the auto-flush toilets in the station, squat-style as usual here, were nearly clean and nearly odorless, not at all taken for granted in China!  We Americans felt very accommodated.  

     The Shanghai Hongqiao station is the largest train station in Asia.  The waiting area is supposed to accommodate 10,000 passengers.  I would definitely not want to be here when people are traveling for Chinese New Year, as the crowds and pushing would be overwhelming.  The station opened only 1 1/2 years ago, at the same time that the high-speed train began the run between Shanghai and Nanjing.  This was just before  Expo 2010 opened in Shanghai, when the city made a huge effort to help visitors feel welcome.

     The train left exactly on time and arrived in Nanjing in just under 2 hours, after making 7 stops in small cities on the way.  There was a digital display in front of the car showing the train speed, which we saw top out at 304 kilometers/hour or 189 mph, made possible by the rails being elevated on huge concrete pylons much of the way.  There were 8 cars making the trip and if all the cars were like ours, most of the seats were full.  As people got off the train along the way, new passengers would board to take their places.  The speed and efficiency of the system was impressive.  

     Some people in the U.S. wonder why we can't build a train system like this.  It seems to me that in order for such a system to be economically feasible in our country, you'd need to have cities with hundreds and hundreds of high-rise apartments instead of single-family homes with yards, and between the cities you need to have 4- or 5-story multiple-family homes clustered together with very limited open areas of uninhabited space between the housing clusters—what we saw outside the train window today.  China seems to have the population density to make such a train system practical.  Even if it wasn't practical, the central government in China can just decide that the system will be built, whether or not it makes economic sense.  

     We've been cooling our heels late this afternoon, waiting to meet a young contact of Terry's here in Nanjing for dinner after he finishes teaching at 5:30.  We're on the 25th floor of our hotel and we can see the Zijin Mountain area as well as a portion of the famous Ming dynasty city wall, where we'll do some exploring tomorrow.