YiWu and the Train

First off, I want to apologize for not getting a picture of the train to YiWu (e-woo). I thought it would be the same one on the return trip. It was not.

I love train rides. I don't know what they are like in America. I hope they are just as sweet. I truly prefer train rides to flying. Its so much more relaxing.

Loading platform at the Shanghai West Train Station

The train we took from Shanghai to YiWu was very new. Sleek, clean, bright and very comfortable. Its top speed was 205 kph (~127 mph). So the 285 km trip took about 2 hours, with 3 stops on the way: Haining (Hi-Ning), Hangzho (Hong-Jo) and Zhuji (Ju-Jee).


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This was the fourth (and fifth) times I'd been on a train in China and the first time not in a sleeper car. Though the lady, from France (I believe) seated next to us slept most of the way (departing at HangZho.) Its not hard to do, sleep that is, as the ride was quiet and smooth. But I was having too much fun watching the countryside roll by and the other passengers on the train.

There was a middle-aged couple (Chinese) who did only two things during the entire trip: talked and ate, and slept. If they weren't talking and eating, they were sleeping, and vice-versa.

As we left Shanghai and slowly climbed the mountains to YiWu, the land turned from apartment buildings and offices, to individual homes and farmland. You could see people out in their fields tending there crops in the morning haze. It was a scene right out of National Geographic. YiWu's elevation is about 900 meters (~2900 feet), so its not too high into the mountains, but you could tell it was higher and that you were traveling upward.

As is usual, trains don't turn around (much) and so to go 'back' they just go in 'reverse'. The interesting thing about this particular train, as I saw a maintenance lady inside, was that you could press a pedal on each row of seats and just swing them around to point the other direction! Very cool!

When we arrived at YiWu, we took a taxi to our final destination. The famous YiWu shopping malls! Eagerly, we grabbed a taxi and took off. This was a bit of a mistake as we ended up getting charged ¥40 ($5.8) for a cap ride that should have only been ¥12 ($2).

YiWu is a major manufacturing city for toys, gifts, jewelry, home decorations, housewares, etc. Most of what you find in Shanghai, along those lines, comes from YiWu. So we went there to stock up!

Well, it was a bit of a disappointment. We didn't understand beforehand that these 'malls' were primarily for Dealers and not Retail. So while the prices were great, you had to buy in bulk.

There were 4 primary buildings, 4 stories tall, all tightly packed with 100sqft shops. One floor sold nothing but toys, one floor was nothing but jewelry, another was home decorations and gift, the top floor was specialty shops. In all, I estimated over 10,000 little shops, all representing their companies' products. And while it was fun walking around and looking at all the stuff, we really didn't buy much.

So, after two hours, we found a bus back to the train station and waited there for another two hours for our train to leave.


Still, it was a nice station and fun to people watch. And I did take a photo of the outside.

Typical Waiting Area in a Train Station

While we were waiting, we got a call from the Post Office, our special order of coins had come in and she wanted to know when we would be able to pick them up. Judging from our trip to YiWu, we figured it would take 2 hours to get back and 30 minutes to get to the Post Office. So we told her 7pm at the latest.

Well, dang it.

The train back to Shanghai was not the same as before. It was older (still clean and nice), but much slower. It ran at only 125kph (77mph), or about half the speed as before. So we called the lady at the Post Office and told her we would be much later, about 8:30 if we were really lucky. While she normally finishes work at 6pm, she said she would wait for us. Actually she insisted on waiting for us. She was afraid that if she left the coins overnight, they would get sold to someone else. This was way above and beyond, and we will thank her with a gift from America next time we go.

And lastly, sitting right across the isle from us on the way back was the same Chinese couple from the train to YiWu! And yes, they were doing the same thing as before: eating and talking, or sleeping - all the way back...