My heart was in my mouth and my face turned ashen …. Had I finally done the unthinkable ? Lost my office laptop and my personal iPad ?? This was the conclusion of my fastest ride – on the 300 kmph speed demon called the Maglev in Shanghai.
My colleague and I are going to Hong Kong and rushed in to the Maglev station and after getting the tickets we had to put all our bags through security. We picked up all the bags (or so I thought) and rushed upstairs to catch the 6 pm train. We got in an I took a dozen pictures as the train picked up speed and we were at the Pu Dong airport in 7 minutes !!! A distance that took an hour by road. Awesome 🙂
And while I got up I realised that I didn’t have my backpack :(:( we rushed out of the platform and my colleague went up to the train authorities to ask about my bag. She had told me that we will get it, but till the authorities confirmed that they indeed had my backpack, the color never returned to my face. They told us to wait till 6.23 and precisely at 6.23 my backpack arrived with all its contents intact.
For whatever else we may deride the Chinese state, for their efficiency and the safety of their cities, am forever thankful. I don’t think I would have got my backpack back in any other country under the same circumstances – probably in Antartica because there are 40 people in all or Iceland… But nowhere else.
Now I have an incident when exhilaration and utter dread co-existed for me 🙂
oh, congratulations! but what you deride the Chinese state?:-)