Okay, I need to tell this story about my daytrip to Beijing. So if you don’t want to read a long story, stop now.
December 30th (Sunday) I was supposed to go to Beijing at 11:45 am to meet up with Jeremy, Michelle and CJ. My train was delayed…and delayed…and delayed for another hour and 15 minutes. By the way, that’s the longest delay I’ve ever experienced with a train in China, generally they’re on time or maybe 15 minutes late at the most. So I get on the train to Beijing at 1 pm. Let me explain another thing that happened before I got on the train. While I was purchasing my tickets at the train station, they sold me a standing-room only ticket, meaning all the seats were sold out and that I would have to stand on the train to Beijing, which is only 3-4 hours away, so it’s not bad. So I took the ticket. This is what I saw when I got on the train.
December 30th (Sunday) I was supposed to go to Beijing at 11:45 am to meet up with Jeremy, Michelle and CJ. My train was delayed…and delayed…and delayed for another hour and 15 minutes. By the way, that’s the longest delay I’ve ever experienced with a train in China, generally they’re on time or maybe 15 minutes late at the most. So I get on the train to Beijing at 1 pm. Let me explain another thing that happened before I got on the train. While I was purchasing my tickets at the train station, they sold me a standing-room only ticket, meaning all the seats were sold out and that I would have to stand on the train to Beijing, which is only 3-4 hours away, so it’s not bad. So I took the ticket. This is what I saw when I got on the train.
Where are the people? There were tons of people waiting for this train and I don’t know if they just took another train or what, but this was the emptiest train I’ve ever been on. When we got to Baoding, about halfway to Beijing, everyone got off the train and I was the only person in my entire car. I was questioning whether the train decided to not go to Beijing and if so, how I was going to get to Beijing. So logically, I took a nap.
After my nap, I noticed these train attendants who kept walking up and down the aisles in my car. Finally, out of nowhere 5 or 6 of them sat down in my area and started talking to me. Then more attendants came, so there were about 10 of them or so. I also made friends with a cart lady who spoke the most English out of all of them. It turns out they’re all from Chongqing, where Kyle teaches. They were really friendly and surprisingly very young. One guy was only 19. The cart lady gave me spicy tofu and a clementine. This was probably my favorite train ride. Then the boss came by and yelled at all of them and they left. Five minutes later, they were back and chilling.
After my nap, I noticed these train attendants who kept walking up and down the aisles in my car. Finally, out of nowhere 5 or 6 of them sat down in my area and started talking to me. Then more attendants came, so there were about 10 of them or so. I also made friends with a cart lady who spoke the most English out of all of them. It turns out they’re all from Chongqing, where Kyle teaches. They were really friendly and surprisingly very young. One guy was only 19. The cart lady gave me spicy tofu and a clementine. This was probably my favorite train ride. Then the boss came by and yelled at all of them and they left. Five minutes later, they were back and chilling.
Anyway, I got to Beijing and it was around 5 pm. I was really late and my phone had no service, so I walked around the train station for about 20 minutes when I saw a long, bright blue coat with a white and pink hat in the distance. It was Jenna. I bolted after her and was able to use Ericka’s phone to call Jeremy. It was pure chance that I saw Jenna at the biggest train station possible. It was 5:30 and the good news was I found Jeremy, CJ and Michelle. The bad news was the train back to Shijiazhuang was going to leave at 8 pm. So I had 2 hours to explore and shop. So I left with Michelle and CJ on our most efficient shopping spree ever. We took the bus and the subway to our destination.
First we went to a DVD shop. This was the coolest place ever because we walked in and the lady behind the counter moved the bookshelf away from the wall and knocked on the wall. The wall opened up and they let us into the secret part of the DVD shop where the nice ones were. There were a couple of other foreigners already browsing, so I guess it’s not that secret, but you would never know it existed if you just walked into the store. So we got some DVDs and moved on to Silk Street. Silk Street is actually a building with 6 floors of different markets. We could spend no more than 15 minutes at each place that we wanted in order to get back in time and not miss our train. We were actually doing well, Michelle got her earrings that she wanted and a purse and CJ got a purse and DVDs. I got a ring and a DVD. We were 5 minutes ahead of schedule. We finished and took the bus back to the train station and made it onto the train about 10 minutes before it left. I was a little nervous about missing the train but Michelle and CJ were pros at this, so I was in good hands.
This train ride was sweet by the way. It only took 2 hours and it was more like an airplane with more legroom and no loud, obnoxious music. Although I didn’t make friends with any attendants on this train. : P
