Shanghai Adventure - part 1

Last week I had an opportunity to visit Shanghai as there was Asia-Pacific HR Summit happening there and I thought would be good idea to be there and do some initial networking in China :). I spent 4 incredible days (30th June - 3rd July) in Shanghai and I would like to share some interesting stuff in several short parts :) - I know you would not read long parts anyway :).

Topic of today: Transportation in Shanghai

Generally the transportation (as well as whole city) is much more "mature" as compare to Beijing (sometimes I have to describe transportation system (well, it's not really system) and rules (which are actually not really rules, its chaos:) which are in Beijing. But back to Shanghai.

So as I said, it's much more mature what basically means that you don't need to worry about your life once you leave your office/home/starbucks:). When there is a green light people are walking through zebra and cars stop (which is not really case in Beijing :). When there is red light people stop and cars are going (same remark about Beijing as sentence above :). More buses have air conditioning which is necessity in this city (during my stay in Shanghai the temperature reached 39 Celsius degrees). But there is one same thing which is same in Beijing as well and which has to be experienced otherwise you can't say you have been in China.

It's travelling in the bus where there is rush hour :). In Shanghai you have big residential areas and huge office/working areas. So basically every morning milions of people are moving from their homes to their work. Now imagine this:

It's 7:00 and you are leaving home - going to work (HR summit in my case) in a suit. It's morning but the temperature already reaches 30 Celsius degrees. You enter the bus which is half-empty but there is no seat (to have a seat in the bus in Shanghai is very strategical and strongly recommended :). AC works which is good news. Now, as Shanghai has the population over 16 million and its huge it takes sometime to get to work (HR summit in my case), right? :). After 30 minutes bus is completly (word completly in this case means 150% not 100%) full and AC is not fulfilling its duty anymore. People are packed, body next to body, not even 1 cm between two bodies. Now everybody is starting to sweat and even you don't sweat (from some not understandable reason, because in the bus it's around 30 Celsius degrees) you are wet. Now the bus is reaching a bus stop which is considerably important becasue you have something like 20 people waiting there. In the country I'm coming from people are not entering bus when the bus is already extremly crowded - but this is not a case in Shanghai. You would not believe but all 20 people fit in at the end and my only worry was if the construction of the bus is able to handle so many people. I'm suggesting guys from Guiness Book of Records to visit Shanghai very soon. You are starting to have problems to breath and you wish your bus stop is the next one. Finally, the bus is approaching your bus station and you have to solve another very difficult problem. How to get from the middle of absolutly completly (absolutly completele presents at least 250%) packed bus to the doors as nobody wants to leave his/her so hardly conqured place. After the 5 minutes fight you are finally free :) and your status is:

- it's 9:00 am
- your shirt is absolutly wet and it stinks very badly - and your day in work is just starting
- you are pissed and tired after travelling 1 hour and 40 minutes in completely crowded bus
- it's at least 35 Celsius degrees and sun is so sharp that concerning the temperature the bus was more comfortable - at least you can breath without problems :).

Key learnings/recommendations:
1. You have to experience this - otherwise you haven't been in China
2. Buy a bike or scooter
3. Take an extra shirt with you
4. Don't travell in rush hours
5. Buy/rent apartment which is very close to you work or near to subway stop (subway is usually packed as well but it's at least underground and not on the sun) :)

That's it :). I hope I unleash the desire in you to travel by bus in rush hour in Shanghai. For volunteers I can get the exact bus number and time schedule with recommended hours :)))).

Waiting for your comments :) ...