Public Transportation

Today, I experienced my first ride on the subway. Actually, it was pouring rain outside and I originally called the lobby for a taxi. After 30 minutes, they told me that with the rain, there are no empty taxi's and I'm better off taking the metro.

The metro's about 2 blocks down the street. I headed into the World Plaza and just followed the crowd down the escalator. Floor B1 was surrounded by restaurants, must be B2. I went down one more flight and the 'massage center' looked very sketchy. Back on B1, there was only one way between two restaurants. Why was it not apparent to me that the subway / metro is between two restaurants? Duh!

I went to the metro card machine to purchase a T-card. Well, everything was in Chinese. Luckily, there was a person there in a red apron, just walking around. Turns out he is there just to help people like me. I asked him if there was an English option. He was very nice, walked over and said, "let's see, well, we can try pressing this..." there was a button that said "English" Wow - not only can't I read Chinese, I also can't read English!

Once I found the place - taking the metro was super easy - everything is color coded, in English and Chinese. Even the announcements are in both languages. And unlike the NYC subway announcers, you can actually understand them! Since I decided to take the metro during rush hour, it was packed. There are metro workers that stand by the doors, when it opens, people start piling in. Then, it'll look like it's too crowded and that's when the just physically push everyone in.

I also found out that on rainy days, people stand at the doorways of buildings and hand out plastic slip covers for your umbrella. This helps the floors stay dry, since everything here is a slippery marble-esk material. The problem is, when people need to use there umbrella again, the slip covers just seem to land on the ground - which is even more slippery than the marble.