Goodbye Beijing!

We packed up and left Beijing (headed to X'ian) by an overnight train last night.

Crowded and bustling does not even begin to describe the station (see photo below of the line of passengers boarding our train) -- but once we got through the initial ticket check it was nearly magical. The train was waiting in a cavernous and misty station, with a porter stationed at every car (hat and all). It felt straight out of an old Hollywood movie, a'la Casablanca.




This, unfortunately, was where the magic ended, as Guillermo and I had only been able to procure a hard seat and not a sleeper ticket. So, we spent the next 12+ hours trying to get some sleep in super straight back chairs (which reminded me of the pews in church -- even if they were upholstered). The fact that our fellow passengers regularly ignored the non-smoking signs, the car lights never dimmed and at least one guy near our seat did not know how to use his inside voice, only made it harder to get some sleep.


We finally made it to X'ian, where my former office mate, Song, met us at the train station and took us to a few sights before she had to run off to an afternoon class. G-mo and I thankfully returned to our hostel and took a long, long nap.

The adventure has begun!