A train crew spreads cheer and gives away monkey dolls as gifts to children on board G1, the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed train, in the run up to the Year of the Monkey.[Photo by Sun Lijun/ China Daily]

Since arriving from motherland India in September 2015, I have been working and living in Beijing. On Feb 6, a couple of days before the onset of the Year of the Monkey, I embark on a four-day trip to Shanghai, and a chance to see how life turns vibrant in China around the Lunar New Year's Day.

Festivities begin

Beijing South Railway Station, a gleaming glass-metal-concrete melange, is a sea of humanity and an ocean of trolley suitcases and backpacks. The packed escalators, moving thousands of passengers up or down multiple levels, are a microcosm of the world's largest annual human migration.

The express train starts right on time at 9 am. It is full, passengers of all ages everywhere. No big suitcases in sight. Chinese love to travel light for New Year, I infer.

The beautiful crew in attractive uniforms springs a pleasant surprise: "New Year's Eve on Wheels" as it were, one day in advance. Festive paraphernalia like red banners with white Chinese characters, colorful posters, lanterns and monkey dolls brighten the pantry car. The crew mingle freely with everyone, pose for photographs, distribute souvenirs to kids.

I am amazed by the smooth train ride at 302 kilometers per hour－steady and almost silent. Except where babies are present, there are no sounds. The Chinese are quiet for the long journey－not for them loud, animated conversations.

Instead, it is headphones plugged into smartphones that play movies, downloaded TV shows or card games. They are interested neither in the goings-on outside the train nor in magazines in seat pouches in front of them. Some grab a nap.

Shanghai fades in by 1:30 pm. Some 1,320 km, done in 4.5 hours, with just one stop, Nanjing.

Shanghai subway stations are packed, people traveling in all directions, arriving and departing, dragging their trolley suitcases along. After checking into the hotel, I hit the shopping streets connecting Nanjing East subway station to the Bund.

The tastefully decorated boulevards wear a festive look. Again, people are everywhere, visitors presumably outnumbering Shanghainese, going by the "wow" expressions on faces and the propensity to take selfies against the background of brightly lit shopping arcades.

Around 7 pm, the Bund along the Huangpu River begins to fill up with revelers even as the weather turns freezing cold. Amid the enveloping darkness of the evening and shrieks of children, everyone wants to line up along the Bund's wall and take pictures. The backdrop is picturesque: towers clothed in dynamic, patterned, dazzling lighting, and the Huangpu shimmering with multicolored, wavy reflected light.