Shanghai Traffic

As we all know, Shanghai's area is one sixth of Beijing, and it's population is 6 times that of Beijing. Beijing's traffic is the most busy traffic in the whole China, you may feel strange why it's like this, i must made a mistake, but it's a fact, let me explain the reason to you.

Shanghai has a very well planned traffic net. There are 3 ring roads, inner ring road, middle ring road and outer ring road, with 2 elevated roads intersecting in the middle of inner ring road, the shape of which likes a Chinese character "申“ , which is the short name of Shanghai. And there are a lot of high ways connected Shanghai to other provinces. Besides the main roads, there are 16000 of buses and 16 metro lines, which connect every corner of Shanghai, to form a close-knit traffic net. 

Before 1990, Shanghai people useed ferry to cross Huangpu River, which is the Mother River of Shanghai, there was no bridge stride over Huangpu River. After 1991, Shanghai government built more than 30 bridges and tunnels up and beneath the Huangpu River, which made the traffic between Pudong and Puxi very smooth and easy.

There is one more thing i have to mention that Shanghai has the only Maglev Trian in the world, whose speed can be up to 430 km/h, it presents the high end science technology  applied in civil traffic area.

Now you know something about Shanghai traffic and know why it's traffic is better than Beijing, maybe it's the best traffic situation in China. If you want to witness what i say, please come to visit Shanghai, i am sure you will love this city!

Suggestions to help you get a new Passport and Visa

1, Here I want to tell you that keep your passport safely, and make a copy of all the useful pages in the passport before you lose it, generally the first page(name page) and Visa page, just incase you lose it in China;
The copies can help you get hotels, actually not all the hotels in China are brave enough to let you in when you only have copies of your passport left.
2, If you lose it in some middle or small size cities, report to the local police and get a formal Passport Losing Paper with the stamp of local Exit and Entry Administration on it, this may take about 3 days or even longer. I once helped one foreigner who lost passport in a small county, it caused a lot trouble. The local police asked for a "foreigner temporary living registration form " from the hotel where you stayed. This is necessary for you to get the new Passport and China Visa.

3. Go to the Ambassador of your country and get a new Visa, one my customer got his USA temporary Passport in 2 hours after talking to the officer in American Embassy, before go to the Embassy you need to download and fill some forms from the Embassy website and book a time to talk to the officer.

4. Get a China bank saving account and save some money in it, the sum of money must be enough to support your stay in China, in Beijing it needs 20000 RMB, but all depends if you plane leaves just several days later, maybe you just save several hundreds of USD.

5. About the China Visa, My suggestion is that directly go to Beijing or Shanghai or other top-big cities in China to get your visa, in other cities the police there have no idea how to deal with this, one my USA friend wasted 5 days(including weekends) but got nothing done, just running around to get all useless papers like monkey. Finally we went to Exit&Entry Administration in Beijing, (it is in Dongcheng district, close to Yonghe Temple/Palace). Generally it takes about 3-5 days. But in emergency you can tell the police and let them hurry up, then you may get it in 2 days.
Also you need to get a "Foreigner Temporary Living Registration Form" from a local hotel, with no real Visa, my American friend and I went to 3 hotels in Beijing finally found one small hotel to let us live in and agreed to give us the "Foreigner Temporary Living Registration Form". Then the police in Beijing can think now they have right to take charge of your case.

So all you need to take with you is:

1. new passport
2. Foreigner Temporary Living Registration Form
3. Losing Passport Provement from the Exit&Entry Administration police.
4. Money Savings provement from a China Bank(suggest Bank of China), in Beijing it may need 20,000 RMB.
5. A copy of your driving license or ID from your country.

Tip: make a copy of your passport and visa pagewhen you have it in hand, the copy can help you get hotel, train ticket.....

Have being tour guide almost for one and half years in Shanghai, I got some feelings from Shanghai.

Shanghai is a city which means international, modernity in Chinese people's eyes. While  foreigners first comes to Shanghai or China, they may feel  Shanghai or China is still very poor. They may not sure about the security and safety of Shanghai. However after they see the whole city, they will feel it's so different from their imagination.

I would not say Shanghai is the best or the worst. It mixed by both sides. Just like most  big cities do, they have good sides and bad sides, rich area or poor area. When we talk about Shanghai, we should have a general view of it. But  anyway Shanghai was developed so much in the past 30 years since Chinese government reforms and opens to foreign countries.

Today we see Pudong area located so many tall buildings.  Shanghai world financial center has 492 m high.  But not far away just the opposite side, there are so raggedy houses. If you saw only the good side of Shanghai, when you see these houses, will you surprised? Vice verse.

One thing I must mention here. My dear tourists, Shanghai is a very safe city, here the security are very good. When you walk around the streets, there are a lot of guards or even polices. If you happened have something, you could ask them for help. But usually nothing will happen on you.

I like Shanghai since I was a little girl. One day when my father showed a smoke pack with a big ship drawing, from then on I feel I got special feelings about Shanghai. I like Shanghai, the costal city. Here near the East Sea. Huangpu river runs from North to South, Suzhou river runs from east to west. I love water, the city everywhere full of water. So it suit me.

Shanghai's culture is comprehensive. It had almost 100 years' colony time, so the western culture also appeared here. Other side, such as the poor houses, the local people they still live in such houses. We can see usually just nearby the tall buildings, there are some tile-roofed houses. I think the tall buildings and tile-roof housed composed a Shanghai.

Other things, you feel unbelievable, it just the culture different.  The original concept different made the way to understand things different.

But when I summarize Shanghai, I would say Shanghai is a beautiful city. Even the poor houses they had a kind of favor.