Getting Around Shanghai Shi

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If you arrive at Shanghai Hongqiao airport, definitely take the airport shuttle bus out instead of a taxi. The taxi queue is horrendously long, I've had the "honour" of getting stuck once for more than an hour, and once was enough!
Airport shuttle to the CAAC office at Jing'an Temple (downtown Shanghai) costs only 4 RMB and a ride should take about 30-40 mins assuming you're not going through rush hour traffic.

Finding metro stations in Shanghai is a game of finding the metro sign. Once you know what it looks like (see photo) and why you want to find it (because it points to the metro station or indicates a station entrance), it's not that hard to find. Otherwise, you'll walk right by these signs without noticing them.

Using the new metro system is easy, cheap and convenient. With a smart Metro Card, it becomes even easier. It also makes taxi payment easier.

The card costs 20 RMB. In any metro station, look for the Service Center. Give the attendant a 100 RMB note, nod and smile to anything they say (which will almost certainly be in Chinese). They'll punch up the 80 RMB amount on a display and show it to you. Nod to show you understand. They'll give you a Metro Card charged with 80 RMB.

What do you do with the Metro Card? At the entry gates in every metro station, the turnstiles have either a ticket slot on their front or a roundish pad on the top. Place the Metro Card on that roundish pad. The turnstile's electronics will read the card, display the balance left on the card and let you pass through the turnstile. When you get to the destination metro station, there'll be the same turnstiles at the exit. Place your card on the roundish pad again. The turnstile will deduct the proper amount, display the balance and let you pass through the turnstile.

WARNING: a Metro Card can NOT be used by more than 1 person. Each person must have their own Metro Card. This is because the Metro Card is used to track the starting versus the ending metro station in order to compute the proper fare for each trip.

80 RMB is a LOT of metro trips. In the dozens of trips I took between Pudong and Puxi stations all over Shanghai, none of the trips was more than 4 RMB. I presume a trip all the way out to the airport (Pudong International is on Metro Line #2) would be a few more RMB but, still, the metro is cheap.

So how would you use up 80 RMB? Easy! The Metro Card can also be used to pay taxi fares (which start at 12 RMB and run up from there). Like the metro turnstiles, all taxis are equipped with a Metro Card reader built into the fare meter. So long as the fare meter flag has not been raised (stopped), you can hand a Metro Card to the driver and they'll handle it from there. It all happens electronically. The taxi receipt will show how much was on the card, the total fare and the resulting balance. This is pretty bullet proof and pretty much eliminates any shenanigans by taxi drivers.

For regular travelers to Shanghai, it's worth considering the value of recharging a Metro Card with a few hundred RMB before leaving Shanghai. This would cover taxi fare on their next return to Shanghai without the cost or inconvenience of an airport currency exchange. A Metro Card can be charged with as much as 1000 RMB.

How are the cards recharged? I succeeded using two different methods. My first go was at a Service Center in the metro station where I handed the attendant my card and a 50 RMB note. With me nodding and smiling at each "question" from the attendant, I walked away with my charged up Metro Card inside a minute. The second time, I used a machine near the ticket dispensers. It looked like a big video game and, unlike the ticket dispensers, had no metro map displayed. I started by slipping my Metro Card into an obvious slot on the machine. The displayed response prompted me, in English, through the process of adding credit to the Metro Card.

I prefer to go to Zhujiajiao by public bus instead of the tourist sightseing buses from Shanghai Stadium.
For most travellers, starting from the People's Square area would be reasonable as it's centrally-located. On Pu'an Lu, behind Shanghai Concert Hall, are 2 bus routes that will take you to Zhujiajiao. The nearest metro stop to get here is Dashijie on metro line 8 -- go out of exit no.2 (the one that has a McDonald's), do an about-turn when you reach street level, cross the road in front of you (this is Xizang Zhonglu), keep walking straight and turn right when you get to Pu'an Lu.
Once there, look for a bus route called Hu4 Zhu1 Gao1 Su4 Kuai4 Xian4 (Hu-Zhu Express) -- this is the faster bus that goes by the expressway and gets to Zhujiajiao usually within an hour or so, fare is 12 RMB. The other option is the Hu4 Zhu1 Zhuan1 Xian (Hu-Zhu Route) which's slower and costs 9 RMB -- we took this coming back and I think it took us about almost 2 hours to get back to town! Note that neither bus route has numbers or English, only Chinese characters!
A conductor will come by to buy tickets after the bus starts moving. The express should leave every 30 mins, the non-express bus every 10 mins. However I would venture a guess that they leave whenever full.
Be warned that most of the seats don't have much legroom. If you have long legs, I would recommend that you take the 1st front-facing seats on the same side as the bus doors (ie on the opposite side from the driver), the 1st seats near the back door, or the seats across the 1st seats near the back door (behind the single front-facing seats).
Going from Shanghai to Zhujiajiao in the morning, avoid sitting on the same side as the driver unless you fancy having the sun in your eyes for the entire trip.

If you want catch a cab in Shanghai, gather as much as information you can of the destination you are going, such like landmarks, the drivers don’t have GPS or Maps, they kind of expect you to tell how to get there, especially you are Asian.

Happy travelling..

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Here's a lowdown on the train choices for this route. Listed from the best quality train to the lousiest quality -- in terms of comfort.
1) Overnight D train (10 hours, 5 daily): 2nd-class sleeper 655 RMB, 1st-class sleeper 730 RMB
2) Daytime D train (10 hours, 1 daily): 2nd-class seat 452 RMB, 1st-class seat 542 RMB
3) Overnight T train (13.5 hours, 2 daily): hard seat 179 RMB, hard sleeper 306/317/327 RMB for upper/middle/lower bunk, soft sleeper 478/499 RMB for upper/lower bunk
4) Lousy slow train (22 hours, 1 daily): hard seat 88 RMB, hard sleeper 176/183/190 RMB, soft sleeper 290/304 RMB
I wouldn't suggest going by hard seat, it's really too traumatic (unless you're a masochist, perhaps) and not worth the savings. The daytime D train is too expensive and a waste of money for most of us. The hard sleepers for the T trains are almost impossible to get so don't count on them, but count your blessings if you do succeed in getting them! My best option would be sleeper on the overnight D trains.

The Maglev

The super high speed Maglev runs back and forth from the Pudong Airport to the Pudong New District area.

This is one of the fastest (maybe the fastest) train in the world and is becoming world famous. When I returned from my first trip one of the first questions people ask me was; did you ride the maglev?.

There are 2 reasons to use this train:
1) For the experience of riding one of the world's fastest train.
2) When you absolutely need to get from Shanghai to the airport as fast as possible or vice versa. The ride only takes about 7 minutes, compared to 30 or maybe 40 minutes by car!

Passengers actually board and disembark from the train inside the airport. This means getting to your gate is even faster. The train arrives and leaves from terminal 1.

The cost is 50 yuan (about $7 USD) one way or 80 yuan (about $11) for a return trip. But because there are several ticket options available, the pricing is sort of complicated, for example, depending on how many times you will need to go to and from the airport.

Note: remember, the cheaper return tickets musts be used the same day!

Please visit the website for more detailed information.

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One way to cross the river is by using an underground tunnel, callled The Tourist Tunnel.

The Tourist Tunnel cost 30-40 RMB, which is about 4 dollars, not real expensive.

But there are other cheaper ways of getting around, so I'm not sugesting using it 4 or 5 times a day. It is an interesting trip to use a couple times to get to the Bund from the Pudong side of the river or from the Bund area to the Oriental Tower.

The entrance on the Bund side of the river is located at street level on the north side (or the left end) of the river platform as you approach the river. The entrance on the Dudong side is near the Oriental Tower and is between the tower and the river.