The daily commute
As I mentioned in the post about books, since October I don’t have a room in Shanghai anymore and I have to commute every day from Suzhou. That implies taking 2 trains.
Does it sound exhausting? Well, it is actually better than I was expecting. The worst parts are getting up early in the morning and arriving home quite late! I don’t have time to do much during the week, but at least I can read on the train. A full one way journey takes 1.5 hours, which is more or less the same time it takes my colleagues who live in Pudong to arrive to our office in Jing’An.
I leave home at 8 am. C. drives me to the train station, which luckily is quite close. The train departs at 8:28 but you have to arrive at least 5 minutes earlier to get in. By the way, if anyone needs to take the high speed train frequently, between Nanjing and Shanghai or any of the stations in between, you can purchase a top up card and access the train without needing to buy the actual ticket every time.
The high speed train to Shanghai.
The bad part about that card is that, even though you pay the full price, you don’t get a seat. So, unless there is an empty seat, you will have to stand for 30 minutes, which is the duration of the trip from Suzhou Yuanqu station to Shanghai.
Inside the carriage.
If I don’t have a seat I just stand near the door of the second carriage, because it will be the closest to the exit gate in the station. When the train arrives to Shanghai it’s better to hurry up and be the first to get to the gate, because there you have to check your ticket again and everybody knows how Chinese people queue…
There is a subway exit directly in the train station. Line 1 is always crowded, but every day at around 9:05 am there is an empty train arriving. Beware of the running and pushing old ladies who will run over anyone who dares trying to get a seat!
Then I have to change lines in People’s Square, which is probably the most crowded subway station in Shanghai (and we are talking about a city of 24 million people, according to Wikipedia). However, lately it is not as crowded as last month, when it took me a good 5 minutes to get to the stairs from the platform, because I couldn’t even move in the sea of people. Maybe everybody decided to go to work earlier.
Many people are watching movies on their phones while they change subway lines and I so want to hit them. Can’t they keep their eyes off for even 10 minutes?
Not as crowded as before.
After I ride Line 2 for 2 stops, I only have to cross the road and I arrive to my office. I scan my finger at around 9:30 (yes, we have a finger scanning machine).
And in the evening, the same journey but on the opposite direction. When the train arrives to Suzhou, if it is raining, the PA announces: “Be careful when you get off the train, the floor is slippery”. Well, thanks.
That’s my daily commute. But only until January, when I will start working from home!
1.5hours is certainly quite a bit of a commute. Do the people on the train stand in the aisles? From your photo the train does not look too crowded at all and not packed like sardines. Or maybe that was a quiet commute day.
I also see that the train seats are forward facing. In Australia, our trains here have seats facing each other, which I don’t think is wise as that sort of takes up more space/less space for seats in trains. And some people don’t deal well sitting facing the opposite direction on public transport!
The train is not crowded, there are usually people standing but normally only in the space between carriages. What is packed like sardines is the subway, haha, that is the perfect description.
And yes, all the seats in the train are forward facing! In fact, they have a very cool system and all the seats can be rotated 180º. So when the train arrives to the final station and everybody gets off, the cleaning ladies rotate all the seats so they are facing forward again when the train leaves again in the opposite direction.
The high-speed train looks good. It looks like that dude in the train carriage (the guy with the glasses and headphones) took a picture of you in retaliation. (-:
Uhm, it could be! Or maybe he was playing a game :D
The high speed train is very nice, yes. And this particular one is brand new, it is a new model and they started using it only a couple of weeks ago! (I noticed because the “nose” of the train and the disposition of the carriage is different).
That’s pretty intense with a long-distance train as opposed to a subway system. And I hate long rides without getting a seat!
My personal rule is I won’t go anywhere if there’s more than two transfers.
Well, take care and hope you can get a faster commute…
I will get the fastest commute of all in January: I will work from home, haha.
Suzhou is like 80 km away from Shanghai. And, believe it or not, they are building a subway to connect the two cities!
That is a long commute. Maybe a little bit longer than your average driving commute in Los Angeles. But at least you don’t have to drive.
Yeah, I thoroughly dislike people who stare at their phones. I hope they walk into a fountain. :) Or at least a wall. I’m nice like that.
Oh, it would be amazing if they walked into a fountain, haha. I will suggest the People’s Square station gets a fountain. And then I will lure phone-watching people into it. MWAHAHA!
That is a serious long commute! I could only stand it with a place to sit down and read some good books I should have been reading long time ago. I really dont know whether I would be up for something like that or not so I admire you how you can deal with it even knowing it will end soon :)
Yeah, I’m only doing it because it is for only three months, if it was more I would have looked for a room in Shanghai and go back to Suzhou on the weekends, like I was doing before!
Ah, the commute culture. I remember for the brief time I was in Bangkok (1 month) having to fight my way into the skytrain. I was astonished by how many people would sardine themselves in when the train was obviously already full + another one would be coming! And standing because you had to wait for a seat. No fun. But working from home sounds really nice. I wonder how it will be for you? I don’t think I could work from home as I’m already a home-body…I need the excuse to get out! :P
You know, once in Beijing I was waiting for a bus with a group of Korean friends. The bus arrived, and it was packed. Like, there was space for maybe one person but we were 8. So we thought we would need to wait for the next bus. But the ticket collector saw us and she opened the rear door, got off the bus, pushed all the people standing next to the rear door, made us get into the bus one by one, pushed some more, and closed the door tightly behind us. Yep, Chinese people are not afraid of being sardines, haha.
Going to an office and mingling with the people is nice, but I think I will be fine working from home. In fact, I think I will exercise and move around much more, haha. I can walk the dog, go to the supermarket… things that now, with this hell of a commute, cannot do!
Very true. Your commute is hella crazy. It is nice that work is allowing you to do this and you probably will be more productive. It all depends on you! Will you wear pajamas while you work? :D
Yeah, the sardine thing…not my cup of tea.
I will try NOT to wear pajamas, but let’s see :D
I swear I’ll tear my face off if I have to spend 1.5 hours commuting to work, two times, every day! That’s the reason I ran away from KL! Well, slightly more than a month left, hopefully you’ll make it…
Yes! I think I will survive.
I certainly do know how the Chinese queue…have had many a situation in China where I have said loudly ‘qing pai dui, qing pai dui’ – (I do hope I was saying that correctly)…clearly you can tell I am not Chinese as I use the word ‘please’ in my request/demand!! Most Chinese get behind me but certainly don’t go to the back of the line….if there is one!!! Another funny memory of China. Do love it!!
Haha, you know, I was working in the Shanghai Expo back in 2010 and “qing pai dui” was my most repeated sentence…
I wish US infrastructure was as new & efficient as China’s. Those trains look nice. Anyway, 1.5 hours each way is not that bad. I have friends with 2 hours commute: car + bus + subway.
Ufff, I wouldn’t be able to do that long term… it would feel like I’m wasting my life on the road!
Dang Marta that sounds like my previous commute! I’m glad you’re so positive about it though (the reading aspect). Is this permanent? Or only temporary?
May I ask how much is a ticket from Suzhou to Shanghai? I imagine it’s not too expensive
I used to do a 2 hour (one way) commute everyday to get into downtown LA. From my middle-of-nowhere-LA station to downtown Shanghai, the monthly cost for the train ticket was 350 USD!!! I was dumbfounded.
It’s only temporary! I will start working from home in January. Yaaay! I don’t think I could commute indefinitely.
The ticket from Suzhou to Shanghai, one way, is 34.5. Considering 22 working days a month, that would be 1,518 RMB, plus 6 per day for the subway: 1,650 RMB a month. 100 USD less than your train ticket (btw, “great” way to encourage public transportation in the US!!). Not super cheap, but definitely cheaper than renting in Shanghai!
I cannot imagine commuting 1.5 and 2 hours to work. Luckily, I live and work in the same small town. It takes me 10-15 minutes to get to work and that includes parking and walking in to the building :) I used to work in the next larger town and it would take me 30 minutes to commute and up to an hour in bad weather. I hated it! Like you say, it felt like I was wasting too much of my day in the car. I’m glad you will soon be working from home.
Yes, I don’t think I could be like this for much longer! I don’t have time to do anything when I get home…
Hey! That new train looks like the shink in Japan! Ah yes. Hitoshi and I considered ourselves lucky to have “short” 45 min commutes each way in Tokyo. In Calgary, it’s not abnormal to commute an hour each way, especially if you take a bus or live in the deep communities. To work at home? Bliss!!
Forgot to concur about the grannies! Beware in Tokyo, too! They may be small but that makes them fast and along with an umbrella and a large handbag, they are not to be messed with. I aspire to be one in 40 years.
It seems all East Asian ladies are like that! I know Koreans are too!
I once jumped over a turnstile in a station in Beijing.
What happened was I find the train cards very complicated. Plus the problem with communication (actually lost in translation!). The ladyguard was trying her darn best to make me understand what she was instructing by repeating her Chinese line over and over. I thought she was asking me to leapfrog over to her.
Haha, I can imagine. Every day I come across some people who don’t understand where and how they have to insert the ticket. The slot is kind of hidden…