Song Hong Road → Bei Xin Jing

First Opened: December 30, 2006

Number of Exits: 5

Cleanliness: 5.5/10

Interest Level: 3.5/10

General Comments: Song Hong Road Station (淞虹路站) is the closest metro station to my apartment and also (currently) Line 2’s terminal station. The best thing about this is you’re always guaranteed a seat at the beginning of your journey. The bad thing about this is there isn’t much to do or see around the station apart from a mall and more apartment buildings. Moreover, every time I want to go anywhere interesting in Shanghai I always pass through Song Hong without stopping to take in the sights (such as they are), so yesterday I thought I’d give the area a chance by arriving at the metro station and not actually using it for a change.

Metro Station Environs

The first thing you notice going in or coming out of Song Hong Road metro station are the hawkers selling everything from tangerines to shoe inserts, and also the motorcylce riders parked out front picking up illegal passengers.

Of course, if you’re loathe to pay a fare, there are plenty of other bikes you can “borrow” to get to your post-metro destination (which is only half a joke; Yun has stopped buying bicycles after her last three were stolen by bike lock-chomping bandits).

Unfortunately the shopping centre opposite the station wasn’t much to write home about, besides containing the first proper food court I’ve seen in China this time round and a man trying to sell me cosmetics out of a black bag in French (at least I think that’s what he was speaking, it definitely wasn’t angry drunk-sounding enough to be Shanghainese).

And on my way out I couldn’t resist snapping a pic of the young man in the hair curlers, or the woman washing her hair in a bucket on a corner of the main intersection. Follicle voyeur is I.

And just in case none of that was mentally stimulating enough, outside the mall was an elderly chess prodigy and his young protege/huckster encouraging passersby to solve a half-completed match.

At least I think that’s what was going on. To be honest after the tactics needed to pull off the clandestine photo of hair curler man, I wasn’t willing to stick around any longer than was necessary to take the shot and march purposefully in the opposite direction, people watching me go and shaking their heads at the camera-happy 老外 girl in the Elmo hoodie.

Or maybe it was just my imagination.