We all know of a service that delivers food immediately to you and all you have to do is order it from your phone. In China it is much more popular. I leave my internship on Tuesdays and Thursdays around twelve in the afternoon. This is prime lunch hour. The little Vespa’s zoom by. I can hear the deliverers running through the offices delivering food as I leave my internship. There are usually a few deliverers outside my dorm waiting to deliver food to students. They are everywhere! They find the food recipient and then they speed off to pick up another meal for their hungry customers. There are many convenient apps to order food.
The convenience of traveling in the city is becoming second nature to me. I know when I go home I will not be used to driving a car everywhere. City living is growing on me. As a country girl, I always believed that it would be hard for me to live in a city. This trip may slowly be changing me into a city girl. I like taking the metro in the city because it allows me to avoid most of the traffic on the streets. I cannot avoid the people traffic though; 24 million people in Shanghai makes for a busy city in a very small area. The metros can become especially busy when you think about how many people are leaving work at the same time.
It’s strange to think of how I have let my guard down when it comes to crossing streets or just walking in the city. The city lacks parking spaces which results in many parked cars on the sidewalks. You may be walking on the sidewalk assuming you are safe and then a car starts driving at you. The Vespa’s and bikes are also allowed on the sidewalks. As you can imagine, it becomes congested very quickly on these sidewalks.
All vehicles do not use their horns the same way we do in the states. Normally, we would use our horn to demonstrate anger. In China, they may use their horn to say they are angry. However, primarily, they use it to say “I’m here” or “I’m coming.” This is to make sure people know to move out of their way. I have found a way to use this to my advantage. I just start making a loud beeping noise to denote that I am coming. When they move over they sometimes look surprised that I’m not a vehicle.
Quick update:
I am approaching less than 4 weeks remaining in my trip. It is insane to think how quickly it has flown by. We have one final trip coming up to Hangzhou on the first weekend of December. We had a Shanghai Thanksgiving on Thursday evening, it was amazing. It felt like something was missing, which was my family. Soon enough I will be home and be able to see my family. Soon enough I will also be missing Shanghai.
