Our day started around 8:00 am. We were meeting my friend Dale around 10 am and had a few things to do before he arrived at our hostel. We were leaving Beijing today for Pingyao, so we had to pack, but more importantly, we wanted to send a bunch of our stuff home, including some of the things we'd bought while in Beijing. The post office was about a 20 minute walk away, so we hurried there, muddled through a couple conversations, and ended up shipping our stuff home by boat because it was about half the price of shipping by air. Expected delivery time: two to three months. At least it'll get home before us!!
We ran home to our hostel to find Dale waiting for us. We were only a couple minutes late, but still had to pack. I hate making people wait. Thankfully we didn't have too much to do and were out the door in a couple of minutes. The plan was to take the fast train to Tianjin, which is about a 30 minute ride east from Beijing. If you can believe this, the combined populations of the cities of Beijing and Tianjin is 33 million! That's about as many people as in Canada!
We took a bus to the subway, then the subway to the train station. It was when we went to go buy tickets that Dale realized he didn't have his passport on him, which he needed to buy a ticket (in fact, he had no idea where he had left his passport, but updated me later that he had found his passport at his work on a photocopier!). So he approached a random gentleman and got him to use his ID to buy him a ticket. OK, so Patty and I bought our tickets, we went through security, and sat in a McDonald's waiting for our train to leave. When it was time to go, we got in line to pass through another round of security when we realized that the ticket had our ID numbers on it (in our case, our passport numbers; in Dale's case, the random guy's ID number). The ID shown had to match the number on the ticket, so Dale couldn't go. We said a quick goodbye (the train was leaving in a couple minutes) and hopped on the train.
Both Patty and I felt pretty sad about leaving Dale behind. It just didn't feel right, but we had already bought our tickets and Patty did want to experience a fast train. The train ride itself was pretty cool. We maxed out at about 290 km/h which is the fastest I've ever traveled over land. The ride was also incredibly smooth. Besides those things though, the novelty wore off pretty fast. Once we arrived in Tianjin, we realized that we really didn't have that much time to get back to our hostel and catch our own train to Pingyao, so we just hopped back onto the next train bound for Beijing. I fell asleep and Patty was doing some research on Pingyao. We are definitely over the fast trains.
The train station we arrived at is attached to the metro so we didn't realize it was pouring rain until we exited the train station to catch a bus back to our hostel. We also didn't have umbrellas. It was a couple minutes of walking before we found our bus stop. While waiting for the bus underneath a small shelter from the rain, a random stupid taxi zoomed by us and drenched everyone waiting there with water. Patty got water in her mouth. I luckily saw the taxi coming and turned slightly, so I didn't get any on my face but both our clothes were sopping wet. It was probably one of the most disgusting things that has ever happened to either of us.
We then decided to wait inside a nearby store for the bus! Anyway, we made it home without any other incidents, although it was still pouring. When we got inside, a staff member let us know that we should leave immediately for the train station since it would take a while to get there. Great! So, we had no choice but to continue on in our soaking wet clothes to the train station. This time, however, we took some plastic poncho-like covers that the hostel provided for us. These proved fairly useful, although flimsy. The rain had slowed slightly, so we made it to our bus no problem. Our stop was the last on the bus' route, which was supposed to be at the train station. The ride was about an hour, but when we got off at the final stop, there was no train station in site. I tried to ask the bus driver where the train station was, but he had no idea what I was talking about.
By this time, of course, the rain had started up again, so we hurried over to a main street where we found a subway entrance and went through. We had no idea what to do at this point, so we asked a gentleman hoping he could understand us. He told us to take the subway one stop and that would lead us to the right train station. We corroborated this with a couple other workers at the subway station, and were on our way. We assumed we wouldn't be needing our rain-ponchos again, so we removed those. That was short-sighted. It turned out that the subway just took us close to the train station and that we had a good 100-150 metres of open air to run through before arriving at a gate (outside of the station) where we needed to present not only our tickets but also our passports.
Now, getting anything out of our money belts while our backpacks are on is nearly impossible. We are carrying money belts around our waists, which is above where the hip clips of our backpacks lock into place. I think this is the first time I've shown someone true annoyance at being asked to do something. I just thought it was incredible that they were making people take out both their ticket and ID outside while it was raining. There was some roof cover, but the line extended out beyond the roof. I was pretty miserable at this point. I think Patty was taking it all better than me, but you'll have to ask her.
Once inside the train station, we wanted to find out where our train left from. We figured this out by asking some young-ish looking guys. Thankfully, they spoke some English and directed us to our gate. Once we had found our gate, we decided to grab something to eat. The McDonald's looked like our best option so we headed there. We ordered no problem, but there were so many people in the McDonald's and the train station itself that there was nowhere at all to sit. So we actually just stood around waiting in the McDonald's for about 15 minutes for someone to get up from their seat.
When one person finally left a two-person seat and motioned that we could use his seat, we assumed that the person he was sitting with was his friend and that they were leaving together. This was incorrect. They must not have known each other at all and were just sitting together because of a lack of seats. Basically, we stole some guys seat. He did leave a bag at the table indicating that he was still sitting there, we just thought that perhaps he had forgot it or was coming back to pick it up before leaving. Anyway, it was a little awkward when he came back and saw his seat taken, but he just joined another table. We offered to move, but he just shook his head. I think he was mad. Oh ya, and the three girls sitting next to us thought the whole ordeal, from us standing waiting for a table to taking the guys seat, was just hilarious. They kept laughing and staring at us. Patty and I wanted nothing more than to ram their heads through their table.
After eating McDonald's for the second time that day (yes, we ate earlier with Dale at the train station) we went back to our gate and found that most people had already boarded. So we hopped on and I, at least, was pretty surprised with what I saw. We had bought hard sleeper train tickets, so if you can imagine a very thin aisle on one side and three bunks stacked on the other all the way down the strain car. It also didn't look like the cleanest of places, but neither were we, so, hey, we made a perfect match.
Turns out that some very nice people ride those trains. We had a couple nice conversations with some young girls, one who was leading a tour group composed of Chinese tourists and the other who was a university student. There was also a young couple with a super cute baby. Honestly, the train ride was something else. It was completely unexpected. The people were friendly, it wasn't scary, and the beds (ours were at the top of the three levels) were pretty comfy. They came with pillows and a blanket, all of which were much cleaner than we were. All in all, both Patty and I really quite enjoyed the trip and got one of our best sleeps of the trip so far! Who would have thought?
Here are a couple of fuzzy pics of the train:
Yes, those top ones were ours! :)
Hope all is well back home!
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