I feel like this city is outdoing every other city in so many aspects. Soon (within a few months) it will claim the title of having the tallest building in the world and currently it has the tallest hotel in the world (first blog photo from this trip) as well as the fastest train in the world. When you arrive at the airport, you will ask yourself "should I take a 45 minute taxi ride on congested roads or take a 7 minute 20 second ride on the world's fastest train?" Which would you choose?

The Maglev, named because it operates by electromagnetic force, accelerates so quickly and goes so fast that it feels like you are in an airplane about to takeoff or perhaps an amusement park ride. It, in fact, accelerates so quickly that after we boarded I was beginning to wonder if perhaps I should be wearing some kind of seatbelt or harness around my shoulders like on a roller coaster in case there is some kind of collision or the train needs to make an abrupt stop. These questions didn't stop as we approached a speed of 200 km/hr, then 300, then 350, and 400. I was starting to get a little uncomfortable and was thinking "Thank god I didn't have to be the first person to ride this train" because even after knowing that it's been operating without a hitch since 2004, going at such fast speeds on a train feels so abnormal. The top speed we reached was 431 km/hr, which was maintained for a while, but since it's going that fast it's not long before it has to decelerate and stop because we reached the destination. After the ride was over all of the tourists clamored by the Maglev for a photo next to the world's fastest train. And all I could think was of how I wanted to ride it again and again forgetting that it was merely supposed to be a method of transporting me from the airport to the city.

As I rode the BART to work from the airport yesterday, I was noticing myself being highly critical of it and, in general, all US mass transit. Why don't we have any super cool levitating trains that are propelled by magnets?