when i got up on saturday morning, that was the question that flashed in my mind. this was my last day in this fabulous city and once i was ready to leave, i was soon going to get an answer. it was a pretty straightforward departure, without any hint of fanfare, and as soon as i was ready, i made my way to the subway station.
au revoir, shanghai.
you've been incomparable. truly incomparable.
and after feeling a sense that i truly had accomplished almost everything i wanted to in this metropolis, i started walking from the hotel to the station in a relatively brief period of time. and now, here i am, at the entrance of one of the major nexus points of the city's sophisticated public transportation network, waiting to head up and board my ride back to seoul.
thoroughly modern in appearance, it had a sleek and louvered, aerodynamic skeleton attached to its main structure and immediately the language of its design conveys the notion of lightlessness and velocity. looking like the side of a bullet train in motion, stripped of its exterior skin leaving behind only its serpentine - like bone structure, i could really feel that the station highlights the concept of direction and rapidity.
speed, baby. its all about speed!
and as i walk up, and waited at the main platform, its interior spaces clearly defined its primary direction and a feeling of unrestricted continuity from where we were to where we gonna go.
and like clockwork, the train arrives. we board. we sit. we depart.
but the question now remains, just how fast are we really gonna go here? whats the target we're gonna achieve? how quickly are we gonna move from the heart of the city to the heart of the airport?
8 minutes. 300 km/h.
yup, that's what i was told. 8 freaking minutes from downtown shanghai to the airport. it took me about 1 hour or so to get from the airport to my hotel and here, the return trip takes me less than 10 minutes.
now that's fast.
and yet another example of china's mad dash to modernity. literally.
ultimately you see, this was no ordinary train that transverses as swiftly as it could. this was the famed, ultra sophisticated MAG-LEV train. traveling at almost the speed of sound itself, this futuristic piece of public transport effortlessly levitates a few inches off its meandering iron tracks across the landscape of the country, and it was powered by the seemingly sci-fi notion of harnessing magnetism as its energy source.
and it was a dream to ride this ballistic slice of technology.
we were going so unbelievably quickly, that i couldn't even take proper shots of the landscape outside, without trees looking blurry, vehicles looking unfocussed and people looking fuzzy on my touchscreen panel.
it was a dream, set far in the future, to be on this train, and that's how it felt. a dream.
and that's the proof. for the world to see.
and as i departed, i felt the need to take a shot of the train from the station itself. although the train appears as if it was moving, it was actually still and stationary at the time, but even resting for a moment, the train still looks like it was in high motion exemplified by its steel skin, resembling liquid metal in action.
everything about this machine was sleek.
its speed, its technology, its design. this truly was movement personified, in every sense of the word.
and soon after, i checked in and simply waited to board the plane back to seoul.
i walked around for a bit looking at both at the inside and the outside, but taking notice of the ceiling of the airport more than anything else. annoyingly prominent white tubes, acting as miniature solar pipes, seemed to be jutting out of the high blue ceiling at the intersection of every square feet and visually, it felt a bit too much.
and it was everywhere. and i do mean everywhere.
and the last thing i remember was the hearing of a murmured announcement that the plane was ready and all us passengers were summoned to board. this was the last shot at the departure hall, and soon i'd leave shanghai. just before i left i thought to myself that this trip just couldn't have been more amazing, and i relish the next time i get to visit this high powered megalopolis.
till we meet again. and we will.
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