Shunyi is a suburb of Beijing where the people with enough money can live in a very comfortable low security western style jail. If you have not been to Beijing, yes, I am being sarcastic. If you have been to Beijing and Shunyi, you will know what I mean even if you think I am wrong. I should back track. Unwind this puppy. I am a fundamentally open minded person (at least that is what I tell myself when surrounded by myself) and can understand that for some expats and rich Chinese the Shunyi suburb lifestyle is the best Beijing has to offer them; it's just not for me. Not with its moonscape with dust landscape and the quasi chic experiences even though I do see the appeal of a house with a basement.
But this story is about the other Shunyi, specifically getting to the other Shunyi. The other Shunyi is roughly in the same area as the original Shunyi, just across the tracks. Actual tracks, as in the airport express subway and in the social sense although not quite in the same social sense you might be thinking. It is hard to describe, at least hard for me too, when you see chuanr food trucks with cayennes parked to next to housing for white collars and squats for laborers. I'll save that story for another day, when I can tell it.
A friend of mine invited me for dinner to the other Shunyi on this particular Wednesday night and while I like this friend very much and she cooks very well, to get to the other Shunyi is a not the easiest thing in the world for this foreigner. Taxi drivers would seem to be the best choice but the three times I've tried a taxi to get there in the past we always got lost. Directions are not the strong suit when you are trying to find a lost place. I've ridden my bike there but it is an hour and half ride from my office and I didn't feel like riding that far. Plus, I didn't have my bike. So I decided to take public transportation.
From Google Maps I could approximately tap on the location of the other Shunyi and ask it for public transit routes. It gave me several, none of them good, with its first choice involving a subway, two buses, and walking for a total of 2 hours and 21 minutes. I poked around a bit more and found a route that seemed a bit faster, subway line 10 and then bus 935 until I am in vicinity and then go from there. I called my friend in the other Shunyi and said I would be there around 7pm.
The subway bit of the trip was uneventful as I've taken it many, many times. I got off at sanyuanchao and found the stop for the 935. The 935 pulled up and this being rush hour a swarm of people rushed towards the bus as it was still moving. Fortunately they did not have the instincts of wide receivers and the bus door opened up close enough to me where I could squeeze on. The 935 is quite a good bus route wise, not stopping at many stops, which made it not a very good bus comfort wise as it was very crowded. I had planned on six stops and after three stops I got seat. I told my friend what bus I was on and that I would see her soon and she replied that I was going in the wrong direction and should get off the bus. Would I end up in the real Shunyi? I went for two more stops and with my directional confidence broken got off the bus and vaguely walked in the direction of the other Shunyi. Google maps was no longer working not that I wasn't on VPN so I switched to baidu maps which is all in Chinese. Fortunately I could spot the bus stations on the map and I found the missing link bus .. the 854.
I back tracked to the bus stop and got on the next 854 which was a rundown plastic seat bus suitable for the other Shunyi. I took it past the race track and then it turned down the road to my friend's apartment. It stopped in front of what I thought was her apartment complex but it wasn't. I didn't realize it wasn't until I walked five minutes inside and noticed a basketball court which was never there. I have gotten off one long block early. From there the story ends simple, I walked that long block and found the right apartment, with great food and a smile, in the other Shunyi.