by Wang JianShou

As always, I woke up at about 7:50 AM. The sun had already climbed high into the sky. I had thick curtains to block out the light, so it felt as dark as midnight even in the morning.

Well, I still had plenty of time, since my office hours starts from 9:00 AM - the typical foreign-owned company schedule. Based on the traffic conditions from my home to my workplace, 30 minutes should be enough. As long as I step out of the door no later than 8:30 AM, I will not be late. It is nice that I don't have to get up earlier as many people in the state-owned companies start work as early as 8:00 AM or even earlier.
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This is a typical working-day morning - get up, wash and brush my teeth, have an egg custard as breakfast. As I expected, I stepped out of the door at 8:30 AM sharp. Crowded and busy in the morning, there is at least one disadvantage of getting up late, the only one I can think of - it is already very hot outside. It is the routine again - to choose from bus, taxi, and metro. Bus and taxi are the same - they need to move slowly in the traffic on Caoxi Rd. It takes time and noone can predict how bad the traffic is.

The metro station is within 6 minute's walk, but it is definitely not a pleasant journey in the hot and busy morning. My choice today is to take the metro. It's always reliable and quick - as soon as you get on board. Well. Wait a minute. The metro accident of last week changed my mindset about the metro line. If you don't know the event yet, let me tell you. The metro line #1 experienced a power failure in the rush hour in the morning. The worst thing was, there was no working backup power supply. So 450,000 people were left in the metro stations.

Of course, buses and taxis were impossible to find. Most of them were late that day, including me. It is considered as one of the worst accidents in the history of Shanghai Metro Line. For the first time, the GM of Shanghai Metro Corp apologized for the pause of operation to the citizens. I used 2 RMB for the single trip train ticket. Don't get me wrong. Round trip tickets are not available and there are other prices for the ticket (there are 4 RMB and 3 RMB tickets.) The automatic ticket machine works very well - I seldom see it go wrong, while the multimedia guide kiosks seldom work as they are designed.

The metro was at the end of the business hours in the morning when I got on board. There are more people getting onto the train than people getting off at the first station at Xinzhuang all the way to Caobao Rd Station. So whene I entered the train, it was almost at 90% of the maximum possible load. The Xujiahui Station is the first station where many people will get off the train. My estimation is that about 1/5 of the passengers will get off. If you are interested, the People's Square Station is the busiest station in Shanghai.