navelgazing.omphaloskeptic.net Journal

Getting There - Aneel's Travelogue

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Mmmmaglev! Shanghai, China, Monday, 06 September 2010 11:08pm

Man, I need to start reading the "Getting to and from the airport" sections of the Lonely Planet guidebooks before I'm on the plane. Preferably before booking the flight. Then I wouldn't find myself in situations where the best way into town is about to shut down when I arrive.

My flight was delayed 20 minutes because the plane was late getting in to Qingdao from its previous stop. When we landed, I rushed off of the plane and followed the omnipresent signs to the Maglev, making sure to hit all of the moving sidewalks along the way. Luckily, the Lonely Planet was wrong about the last Maglev. It left at 21:42, not 21:32, which meant that I arrived with 3 minutes to spare (they stop selling tickets 5 minutes before the last train).

So, anyway, hello from the future, where you can ride a Maglev (!!!) at 301km/h into a city, then transfer to a subway which gets you within sight of the glowing neon sign for your hotel, and you can pick up individually-wrapped rice balls at a convenience store for dinner at 10:45pm.