At first there was a few problems getting to the train station, since every taxi i hailed down flatly refused to take me there, probably for fear of being stuck in horrendous traffic. funny thing is though, there was hardly anyone on the bus, and it didn't take all that long to get to the station (taking into account the usual rush hour traffic of course).
I had previously done a favour for one of the local chinese students at the school, and he had insisted on taking me to the station that night to ensure i survived the crowds and got on the right train. I might go into the details of this story in a future blog, but to be brief, I had helped him correct some Information technology thesis (of which i have no knowledge) he'd translated from chinese into english, which had caused me much distress. Kept telling him i was over the whole incident and that i'd already caught a train the prevous weekend, but he was adamant to make things up to me. And you know when some people are adamant (especially chinse!), theres just no way to change their mind. In the end though, he actually was able to do much more than just guide me to my train. He had a cousin who worked at the station who was able to let me into the VIP waiting room to await my train! When i say VIP waiting room i don't mean a lounge bar with gorgeous waitresses serving you complimentary wine, i mean a room with slightly less people and lounge chairs. So at least i didn't have a repeat of the jostle fest of last week :)
Seems like everyone here in china has a friend or relative working in a train station!
The sleeper train itself was alot more modern than i thought. The interior feels somewhat like that of a comercial plane. You can choose between 2 types of berths/sleepers, hard or soft. I chose to book a hard, since i'd heard the soft berth rooms are closed off by a door to the rest of the train (not good for safety or your posessions if there's dodgy people in your cabin), and most of these more expensive soft berths are booked by rich boring snobs, or businessmen. The hard berth is not a solid rock, and i had no problems at all sleeping. It must've been the gentle rocking of the train which helped! Each hard berth cabin has 6 berths - 2 sides with 3 levels each. The middle and top berths don't have enough head space for you to sit up, so u have to either lie down on these or invade the bottom person's berth to sit. For this reason i'd reserved a middle berth. I thought that this whole train would be booked out, but there were quite a few unbooked berths. My cabin mates told me it was becauase most chinese people didn't want to pay for berths, compared to the price for seats. I don't know how they do it. sitting or standing for 12 hours overnight, with very little room to move. no thanks, i'd rather fork out an extra 200 yuan or so! Lucky for me, our cabin was only me and a young couple from xi'an. lovely people. once intro's were made we were chatting for the few hours before lights out at 1030pm.
I knew i couldn't avoid the toilets this time around, but i was pleasantly surprised to find a relatively clean modern looking loo! it was a squat one, but wasn't too shabby at all! After discovering this, i allowed myself to drink a little more water compared to the last trip :)
So after lights out at 1030pm, i slept the whole night and awoke to find myself in beijing, finally!
After managing to find the metro station closest the train station and negotiating the metro, i finally met up with a 2nd aunty whom i'd never met before. After intro's were made, the first thing she asked me was "well how about we grab some good coffee somewhere?". At that moment my heart sang, and inside i wept with tears of joy. I knew then that i was going to have a fantastic time in beijing :)
hey al! sounds like you are going to enjoy Beijing - modern city! YEAH make sure you dose up on modern luxuries that we've taken too much for granted for...and your much needed meat ;)
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