Day 1 - The Great Train Ride

I left from the school going to the train station at about 10:30 for a 12:30 train ride. The rides would take about 29 hours so we planned on arriving at about 5pm on the second day. I knew the soft sleeper would be OK but I didn't really know what more to expect. I arrived pretty early so me, Dave,, and Ken went to a new Pappa Jhons that had just opened up. This must be the fanciest Pappa Jhons any where, looking like a somewhat more upscale restaurant chain, something like Pizzeria Uno. Me and Dave split a pepperoni pizza while Ken got some pasta. It cost us about 50 RMB a person which is about 6 meals to the Muslim restaurant or about 10 at the cafeteria. Ken said that his pasta tasted like something out of a can that had been warmed in a microwave, but the pizza was actually very good. I've never really liked Pappa Jhons at all, but this pizza was very well made, or maybe I just haven't eaten pizza in quite a while. After that we secured tickets from Changzhou to Shanghai on the day we would have to leave for our flight to Vietnam. Even though there weren't a ton of people there the train station had huge line areas prepared for the rush of craziness that Spring Festival, lunar new year, will bring. Last year around this time China also had a huge snow storm in the North which turned the railways into a total mess. There were definite lines but that doesn't stop some people from just walking directly to the front bypassing the entire line. China is not really a confrontational enough society to do much about this, but it angers Dave and Ken to no end.

When we got to the waiting area it was already time to go out to board the train. We actually had our tickets checked three times in contrast to the usual maybe once. Dave always in love with finding the cheapest most efficient way to do something decided against the soft sleeper that me and Ken went for. The train stopped and we were hurriedly put on board during the maybe three minutes the train was actually stopped. Our room was fairly close to one end of the train so we found it really quickly. Inside was a young Chinese family with and adorable three year old. At first they didn't really say much as we got settled in but after a while the guy started to talk to us in a mix of simple Chinese and English. Ken's Chinese is much better than mine. I've just never really had much interest in learning much more then just basic stuff to get around. I know it would be useful but I just can't bring myself to put the sort of time into it that would really be necessary to learning a lot more.

The man asked what we did and said that he was some sort of businessman, a banker I think. His family was going up to his wife's parent's house for the holiday, and New Years. The soft sleeper compartment was a little room with two bunk style beds on each side. During the day most people stay on the bottom bed, which has a soft of back rest. There was a window to one side with a little table underneath it. The bed's were a good length and while not exactly wide weren't supper thin either. There were blankets and pillows provided and while not really soft the beds were what I've come to expect from China. They sold food on the train but it seems a lot of people bring there own. I could get all the hot water, in China hot water means it can take skin off, at despencers in each car. The whole car was quite warm when we were moving but at each of the many stops, about 25 total to to Harbin, 29 form Shanghai, they opened the outside doors so it got a lot colder. When the door to the room was shut though it got quite warm with five people.

The little kid was really cute, at one point she made a little paper airplane and took huge delight in throwing it back and forth with people. In fact sometimes on the train it was just fun to sit back and watch what she did. Her mother never really said much, or actually anything, to us. In the US a girl might wear something like a thick stocking or thin pear of sweat pants to something like a club, but in China it's OK just to hang out on the train like that. A lot of the women on the train wore only long underwear and no real pants. Me and Ken went down through the train to visit Dave in the hard sleeper section. His section had rows of beds like ours, maybe a little thinner, three high on each side with no real separation or doors between the rooms. Dave was chatting with a few college students in mostly Chinese, though some of them spoke pretty good English. Unlike our section, which was mostly families, there were a lot more young people around Dave. They were from various parts of the country though most were students in Shanghai. Going to school there usually meant they were the top students.

I borrowed Dave's Vietnam book which he managed to pack despite bringing extremely little. I think his pack was pretty much one change of cloths and a bunch of guide books. I packed a lot more then him despite having to remove about 20% of what I wanted to bring due to space considerations. I was worried that packing for Vietnam was going to be a bigger hassle due to the changes in climate we would pass through. Back in our room me and Ken played about three hours worth of Knock Rummy a fast Gin Rummy variation. The little girl hung out in the hall with other children from about four other families. There wasn't much to see out the window while it was still light since we were mostly passing through other little cities like Changzhou. At about 11:30 the little girl was getting pretty tired so we turned off the lights and I decided to go bed while the train rocked and the occasional light passed by the window.