About China blogosphere, travel, and entrepreneurship

Tom Mercer from Simple Green Choices (this blog might not be accessible in China if you don’t have a proxy server) has great resources in green travel. And his post about travel options has been my self-justification of not owning a car - not environmental friendly, especially when I am in Shanghai. Here are the numbers of how many “greenhouse emissions“ created by different transportation methods.

Total Emissions Per Person

• Average Car/Single Driver - 1.39 lbs/mi
• Average Car/Family of 4 - .34 lbs/mi
• Train - .32 lbs/mi
• Bus - .48 lbs/mi
• Plane (250 mi trip) - .85 lbs/mi**
• Plane (600 mi) - .69 lbs/mi**
• Plane (3500 mi) - .56 lbs/mi**
  

So last weekend, we decided to take train instead of to rent a car to a nearby city Hangzhou (杭州, Hángzhōu). The later option will be environmental friendly if I have a family of 4. But not now. It was a great riding experience and I’d like to share with you how to enjoy “train riding” to Hangzhou from Shanghai.

1. Buy train tickets: Unless you buy the tickets at train station ticket boots, there is always a small sub-charge on buying a train ticket from agents. The best way is to go official ticket vendors/offices and it will cost you only 5 RMB/ticket. If you call a travel agent, the max. amount could be 30 RMB even in non-national holiday period.

2. Go to railway station: There are two major train stations in Shanghai: Shanghai Railway Station (上海火车站) and Shanghai South Railway Station (上海火车南站). Both of the stations are connected to Metro Line 1 and Line 3. South station is a very new and modern architecture and was open on July 1, 2006. A lot of trains to southern provinces (Zhejiang Province, Hunan Province and Jiangxi Province) are departed here, so was the high-speed train we took was departed here as well. Make sure you know which station you want to depart from and arrive at. The taxi fee from South Railway Station to Jing’an Temple is around 30 RMB in daytime non-rush hour.

3. Take the train: I have the experience of spending 24 hours in the train when traveling from Shanghai to Beijing around 10 years’ ago. But it only took me 12 hours last year. So the train travel experience becomes more and more enjoyable (except of Chinese New Year period) in China. But I have to say the toilet condition is still a big challenge for most western travellers in a long distance trip.

4. Buy return tickets：The only benefit of buying return ticket at your destination is to SAVE the transaction fee since you are at the train station! We saved 10 RMB! ^_^

Here is a image tour of our train-riding experience:

We traveled from Jing’an Temple direction and arrived at North West Entrance on level 2.

There is a layout map on the left-hand side near the entrance. B1- Arrival; Level 1 & 2 - Departure.

A grand architecture! Definitely not a traditional train station you see in China!

Highspeed trains CRH (which means “China Railway High-speed”) to Hangzhou are all departed at A1 lounge on level 1. We took the stairs on our left hand side and went down one level, then followed the sign to the waiting room. CHR has a “funny” Chinese name “和谐号” (Hexie Hao, 和谐 means “harmonious”).

This is what you want to look for.

Double confirm that you are not going to the wrong waiting room. This sign at the entrance tells you the numbers of all the trains that depart from this room, including to Hangzhou: D653, D657, D663, D667, D675, D681, D683; to Changsha (长沙): D109. “D” trains (train number started with letter “D”) (动车组，DòngChē Zǚ) are the fastest trains in China railway transportation system. If you take “D” train to Beijing, it takes you only 10 hours.

Hangzhou is a very popular spring travel destination for Shanghainese, people (and us) are desperated to see the spring green in Hangzhou!

Our train departs at 9:30am.

On the platform. There are 16 cabinets in a CRH.

The cabinet of CRH is very clean and spacey, 5 seats in a row and luggage rack overhead.

Even though the toilet condition has room for improvement, we can’t complain about the “hot” and “cold” FREE water on the train. I believe all the trains in China provide free water today.

Three minutes after departure, the train was at a speed of 130km/hour. The highest speed is around 170km/hour, avg. 140km/h. It only takes 75 minutes and costs us 54RMB/person to travel from Shanghai to Hangzhou.

The bullet train CRH 和谐号。

This is a used ticket from Hangzhou (杭州) to Shanghai South Railway Station (上海南).

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