Greetings once again, this time from 3?,??? ft over somewhere in mainland China.
We are currently about an hour into our flight to Bangkok, with a little over 3 more to go. Much more reasonable than the major schlep across the Pacific and North America, but things aren’t quite as good as we had them on that A340. Firstly our China Eastern A321 is most definitely configured for cattle car work, the seats are not too badly squashed front to back but they are noticeably tighter side-to-side. There is no in flight info, and of course my GPS system steadfastly refuses to pick up a single satellite, something about the windows on this bird I assume, so I’ve not a clue where we are save for drawing a line on the map and making an educated guess. This is too bad, because the weather is allowing us to see down to the ground, unlike the ultra hazy conditions around Shanghai. Well, what’s visible from my seat, anyway, as we are right over the wing. Crap.
I realize I’m starting to sound like a pain-in-the-ass spoiled western biz traveler; I should just shut up and try to enjoy the flight. But it ain’t easy. There are a LOT of kids on this one, most are good but we have at least half a dozen grade A howlers evenly dispersed around the cabin, thankfully the loudest – his volume dial most definitely goes to 11 – is way at the back. Seriously, for the first half hour it sounded like they were performing surgery on him with no anesthetic. Thankfully someone must have got out the tranquilizer gun, things have settled down… hmm, maybe not. Behind me now is a 3 year old who delights in playing slam-the-tray and kick-the-back-of-the-seat; charmingly his mother two seats over doesn’t seem to know he exists. The occasional Look-Of-Death over the back of my seat seems to chill him out pretty good though. Sometimes it’s handy to have a bit of Attila The Hun in your genealogy.
I am however completely charmed by the little fellow in front of me, he seemed very unhappy when we boarded about having to sit still on Mom’s lap, but a little game of peek-a-boo with the funny looking westerner seemed to put a smile on his face and we haven’t heard a peep since.
Time to reflect and report on our last day in Shanghai. The double plant visit went well, owing to the proximity of both to the city, and we actually got home quite a bit earlier than the day before. The ride to the second plant was quite a departure from our experiences thus far, our driver for this leg was so chilled I would question whether he actually a pulse. For the first time ever I paid absolutely no attention to the traffic around us, but Ray was getting visibly agitated… “This guy’s useless maaaannnn, look at how slow he’s goin’… He’s pluggin’ up the whole system, maaaannn!!!” (I should point out here that we have both picked up a distinctly California surf style dialect since spending a lot of time with Mike, lots of “mans” and “dudes”). He is well and truly annoyed that buddy isn’t picking up the pace and defending his lane position from the hundreds of intruders who continually barge in front of us. In the tranquility, I am completely spaced out (no comments from the peanut gallery out there, ‘kay?), still engrossed in my observations of what this place looks like and how it works, so I’m not immediately sure I understand the problem, but after watching for a moment I can see what he means, it now seems odd to be more than 3 ft away the car ahead, observing the speed limit, or any of the other rules for that matter.
We do however arrive alive, and after visit number two are now crawling our way back to the hotel. When we look back to see an endless line of traffic behind us in one of the tunnels I do fear Ray will burst a blood vessel. Luckily he keeps cool, and we get back to the hotel with something we’ve yet to experience… 2 hours of free time while the sun is still up. I toy with the idea of going for a stroll but figure I’m better off getting my plant visit report out of the way, so I won’t be typing at 3 am. Mike is taking us out again, so who knows what time we’ll be back.
We start with a visit to a local indoor market/shopping center that basically sells nothing but fake stuff, watches, purses, shoes, luggage, you name it. Now the concept of "fake" as we know it is actually debatable; we learn from some well informed locals that since the factories for the "real" products are actually in a lot cases right here, what they do just run an extra batch here and there and they shows up mysteriously at these street markets. How to tell what's what is beyond me. Well maybe the watches, which being mechanical devices I can at least kinda tell what's going on. But the soft goods? Fuhget about it.
As we walk in the door Mike feighns misery... "man, I can't believe I'm goin' in there with you two gringos... you guys are shark bait, man... you gonna get killed!"
What he really means is that we'll likely get mauled for being the only two Caucasians in the joint, they'll be coming out of the woodwork once they get the scent of North American cash.
Sure enough, we aren't two steps into the place and we're completely surrounded, actually being pulled into rooms by the shirt sleeves.
"Oh maaaaan, I knew it..." bemoans Mike, with a sly grin on his face.
We hadn't really planned on a stop here, as I was waiting for Hong Kong to address the chick shopping list I'd been saddled with long before leaving home. Note to self: in future, do not under ANY circumstances divulge any details about trips to Asia to those of a female persuasion in one's immediate circle. The resulting baggage overcharge alone could well exceed the cost of the trip...
The place itself is something to behold. Little tiny shops, nicely decorated and stocked, halogen lit, the whole thing, all seperated by little miniature hallways. Hundreds of them. Imagine Fairview or Carrefour Laval run through the Xerox machine set to 25%. Bizarre.
As we wander through wondering what the hell to look at or buy, Ray gets a taste for some of the watches and starts looking at fake Rolexes. I am amazed at how good they look, at first glance it would be real tough to tell them apart. They even have the scratch proof face, as many a vendor is proud to demonstrate by going at them with various steel implements.
And the pricing... Barganing here is done on a ferocious level, at least as nasty as a Turkish carpet bazaar, perhaps worse. Starting price for the watch Ray wants is 500 RMB, or about $75. Lots of haggling ensues, and the old classic rule still applies, if you want to find out the bottom line, head for the door. In this case it drops to 200 RMB, or about $30. I am amazed to think that this would even cover the cost of the materials.
As we travel around checking out other shops it's the same drill, and what's even funnier is that they're all in cahoots, the minute you want a model they don't have, someone bolts out the door and reappears an instant later with the exact selection you just looked at ten shops ago. Hmmm.
And these are always "Best quality! Best quality". We can only conclude somehow they believe the molecules inside the watch magically become better aligned in the sprint down the hall. Finally Ray blows a gasket... "Look, enough already. How about showing me your worst quality instead?..."
This throws them for a loop. But resourceful folk that they are, they sprint across the hall, disappear behind a secret opening in one of the walls, and reappear with a whole new selection we've not seen before, in an expensive looking Samsonite case, which is no doubt no more genuine than the watches it contains. "You know" says Ray "I think the whole building is fake. Check the walls". After examining the new batch - which incidently was double the price, but at this level who the hell cares? - he gives up in disgust. "Can't do man... can't be That Guy".
He's right, no matter how good the fake, wearing an imitation Rolex is just too cheesy to deal with. I on the other hand find a couple of good items to strike off my list, so at least something productive came from the excersise.
Time to dine.
Tonight venue - wait for it - an actual, honest-to-goodness real Chinese restaurant. Will wonders never cease? Ray once again looks apprehensive about the possibilities of being served live monkey brains, but I’m no longer buying it; if we’ve made it this far there ain’t much that’s going to phase him anymore. To wit: when we nearly hit a dog on the back roads coming home I look over and without missing a beat Ray quips “wouldn’t have been a great loss. It’s probably what’s for dinner tonight anyway”.
The restaurant is top notch, I wish I had brought my camera out more in the evenings as I’m getting sick of laying on the superlatives to illustrate these places, but damn it was impressive. We had our own beautifully decorated private room with a giant flat screen TV no less, and the food as usual is fabulous.
It is a long process, and by the end Ray’s low battery light comes on; he opts to go back to the hotel, Mike, his friend David and I will soldier on to tonight’s entertainment, a visit to a Japanese style spa house. Once again, big, imposing, impressive, gorgeously decorated, you get the idea, right?
But it really is. The concept is interesting; it’s like a giant family relaxation center where you have your choice of different themed floors and activities; showers, saunas, massages, game rooms, TV rooms with big electric Barcoloungers - where I personally went sound asleep after the warmest sauna I’ve experienced in a while.
I understand why Mike says you could spend the whole day in here.
After a reasonable night’s sleep (thank God for afternoon departures) we are off to the airport. Mike and David were once again at our service, this time showing up with an Asian market Honda Odyssey, which looks like a radically chopped and sectioned version of the much more utilitarian version we have at home. Man is this thing cool!
They had originally planned to take us straight to the airport, but I had asked if they could drop us at the MagLev train station, a little closer for them, and a wicked cool opportunity for us.
If you’ve never heard of it, the Shanghai MagLev is far and away the world’s highest tech and fastest operational train.
I had heard there was something like this here, but forgot to investigate it in any detail before we left. No worries, it announced itself in short order upon our arrival. As we were driving down the expressway on the way to our hotel, Mike at one point casually says “hey man, here comes that high speed airport train”. I had noticed that there was a set of strangely configured elevated tracks following alongside and over the highway, but looking up now, I saw nothing.
KAABBLLAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMM!!!!
I nearly jump out of my skin as the thing explodes past right over our heads. There was no chance of seeing it, by the time I had reacted and turned around it was long, long gone.
God almighty, how fast is this thing??
Ready?...
It goes 431.
Yes, you read that right.
Four-hundred-and-thirty-one kilometers per hour.
268 mph, if you prefer.
Don’t believe me? Have a look for yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Maglev_Train
I knew at that point we just HAD to try it. I was about ready to go downtown right then and there just to do it round trip to the airport and back. But Mike was perfectly happy to drop us there for our return on departure day.
Getting on is just like any other train, buy your ticket (about $7 or so), wait on the platform and just grab the next one, they arrive every 15 minutes or so.
They do actually x-ray your bags as you go through the turn style, but other than that you wouldn’t guess you’re about to travel faster along the ground than but a small handful of human beings who have set land speed records.
It takes off very gently, being a maglev there is virtually no contact with the track; the train floats on an electro-magnetic field, resulting in the eeriest, smoothest ride imaginable. No clicks, no clunks, no squeaks. Just a faint hum and steady, gentle push in the back.
The cabin is very nice inside with huge picture windows and airline quality seats.
There is also a digital speedometer at the front of each car, and we made sure to park ourselves right there to be able to photograph it.
At first it’s quite disappointing, a metro ride is more thrilling, but as we were told it’s quite deceiving. When it finally feels like we’re starting to move, we look up at the speedo, we’re passing through 130. Hmmm.
Now things are starting to happen. Seconds later 200.
230.
260.
300.
Holy crap, stuff is really starting to fly by.
330.
350… the acceleration hasn’t backed off one iota. Jesus, we’re gonna go into orbit.
380.
390.
400!!
We’ve now gone well past the speeds attainable by any other ground-bound machine that comes out of a factory.
420.
425.
430!!!!
It actually does it.
Looking at the reading, there seems little difference from when we were parked in the station. Turn your head to look outside, though, and it’s a world gone mad.
The cement barrier beside the track goes by so fast you eyes cannot register what the surface looks like, nor possibly resolve individual markings or items that may lie on it. Looking farther down the track things seem a little more normal, but still come at you in one hell of a hurry. The worst is looking straight out, perpendicular to our direction of travel, at houses and buildings nearby. You are tricked into thinking that this is really just a movie screen and they’ve sped up the film. The video I shoot looks even crazier, something surely must be wrong with the playback. Ray and I laugh like idiots.
Almost as soon as it tops out it leans into a gentle curve and starts decelerating, but braking from this speed is no easy task, I remember watching a show on the French TGV, which with the governor switched off can actually hit these speeds, but the conventional friction braking system on it required thirty kilometers to stop it from that speed. Not terribly practical.
The MagLev, however, brakes just as smoothly as it accelerates, simply by reversing the current in the track surface that normally pushes it forward. No heat, no fuss.
We have covered the 30 kilometers from the Pudong station to the airport in a little over 7 minutes, something that can normally take an hour or more in Shanghai traffic.
Unreal.
And it's all technology from ze fahzerlandt. Comforting to know that the Germans are still the world's top speed freaks, but strange to realize that the Chinese are the only ones with enough coin to build the thing. Too bad. I mean, how cool would it be to have one of these that goes to Toronto?
Once back at the airport, I am saddened that Phase One of our trip is over. Although we have learned an enormous amount about the inner working of our industry, I have the overwhelming feeling that we have but scratched the surfaced of what really makes this vast nation tick. I try to balance this with the fact that we will at least have one last chance to catch a look at the areas of China outside of Hong Kong, from where we will re-enter in 4 days to visit another factory. And of course it doesn't hurt that we are on our way to a whole new world of wonders in Bangkok.
How does that Murray Head song go again?
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