Taking the Subway in Shanghai, China

Hi everyone! I went out and took a bunch of photos to show you what it's like riding the subway here in Shanghai!

All right! Welcome to Shanghai! We are going to take the subway from Century Avenue (世纪大道) to Lujiazui (陆家嘴). Here we are outside the entrance to Century Avenue:

This sign shows that lines 2, 4, 6, and 9 all go through the Century Avenue station.

This is exit 12 of Century Avenue.

Here we are going down the escalator into the subway station.

Many of the subway stations are connected to malls, which is nice. You do your shopping or whatever at the mall, then go down to the basement level and you can just walk right into the subway station. The above photo shows that exit 11 of the Century Avenue station goes into a mall.

Getting in line for the security check.

Here we are going through the security screening. Uh, it's kind of a joke though, because if you don't put your bag on the conveyer belt to go through the machine, you can just open it slightly and let the security guard kind of glance in, and then they'll wave you through.

I guess it's at least better than a few years ago, when tons of people just walked right through, right past the machine and the security guard standing right there, without even pretending to get their bag screened. Yeah, used to be the majority of people did that. Then I guess there was a new policy and the security guards started being more serious, blocking people if they didn't put their backpacks on the conveyer belt. But they still allow this "vague glance and then wave you through" and there's nothing at all related to checking pockets or anything, so I still think the security is kind of a joke.

After you go through security, you come to these machines were you scan your subway card and then enter the station. (The one on the far left is wider to allow wheelchairs/strollers, the others are just turnstiles.)

Here's a close-up of the machine. That circle is where you scan your card- or if you're using the app, you hold your phone over it so it can scan the QR code. Once you have scanned your card successfully, the turnstile will unlock and the little screen (the rectangle you see in the image above) will show a green arrow and you can enter.

All right so we are taking line 2. (Here's a map of Shanghai's entire subway system, if you're interested.) Line 2 is green- look for the green to show which stairs to take to go down to the subway tracks.

Going down the stairs. At this location there is an escalator to come up but not down. 

Above the subway track, there are these signs that show which station we are at, and all the rest in each direction. This one shows you are at Century Avenue and the subway will then continue on to the left.

These are the doors that will open when the subway comes. Here you see guardrails that come up to around people's chest-level. Some other subway lines (newer ones) have panels covering the entire height, which seems safer to me.

Okay we are on the subway now! Inside the subway car, you can see these signs above the doors that show the entire route, all the station names in Chinese and English, and which lines you can transfer to at each station.

On the subways and in the subway stations, masks are required. Well, pretty much everywhere masks are "required" but it's not enforced so you see maybe 50% of people in masks. Not so on the subways. On the subways, it's enforced. That's basically the only place I've seen the mask policy consistently enforced throughout the entire pandemic. (Oh, and also at the doctor.) Everywhere else, well, since we're usually at 0 locally transmitted covid cases in Shanghai, people kind of stop being so serious about masks. And then every now and then there's BIG NEWS that 1 airport worker tested positive, so then security guards throughout the city start getting more serious about masks and checking your green travel code and all that.

That guy in the photo, though, with his whole nose out... yeah if the subway employees see that, they'll tell him to wear his mask correctly.

Announcements are made in Chinese and then English, and also they scroll by on this display. Announcements about this is line 2, the terminal station is whatever, next stop is whatever, don't give your personal information to random strangers, etc.

Each row of seats will have 1 at the end designated for disabled/ old people/ pregnant/ parents with small children/ etc.

Getting off the subway.

All right, wonderful, we rode the subway for 2 stops and here we are at Lujiazui.

Let's go up to B1 so we can get out of the station.

Here are the machines where you scan your card to get out. If you have a single-use card, then you put it in the slot on the front of the machine, and the machine takes it. If you have a multiple-use card, or you're using the app, you scan and then the little screen will show you how much money is left on your card.

It calculates the price based on how far you went. In our case, going just 2 stops from Century Avenue to Lujiazui, the price is 3 kuai (this is about 50 cents in US dollars). If you're going really far on the subway, maybe the fare would be as high as 10 kuai (that's like, $1.50 ish).

Great, then you go through the turnstile and you can exit the station.

At each exit, they will have a map showing the different exits of the subway station and what roads are nearby.

Hooray, here we are at Lujiazui, leaving the subway station. Next time I'll show you photos of what I saw at Lujiazui.

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Sinopharm vaccine, 1st dose 

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