China 2007 (1) - Beijing Train Station

The bad part of flying Northwest to China is that it is EXTRA LONG. First we have to fly to either Detroit or Minneapolis (Day 1 9:00 am), then to Tokyo, then to Beijing. By the time we got to Beijing (Day 2 9:00pm), we already spent more than 24 hours either at the airports or on the planes. It is a long and painful journey, the worst part of the whole trip.

Day 3
There is no doubt about it that Beijing is a lot cleaner than before, but the pollution and the traffic are still terrible. You have to pray that it is a windy day so the wind can blow the pollution off, and you can actually see 100 yards away. The Olympic stadiums' construction is almost done, but is the city ready for the Olympics? Everyone has their own opinion.

We went to the train station to buy train tickets to Nanjing. There are many ticket windows open. Each has about 10 people in line. We waited for ~10 minutes. It came to our turn, and here is how it went:
I said: "Hello! I want to buy three soft sleeper tickets to Nanjing on the 15th."
The ticket seller said: "Three tickets, Z49 on the 15th, 2 lower berth, 1 upper berth, 1234 Yuan."
I gave her 1300 RMB through the little opening on the window.
She threw my tickets and change back and yelled "next".
I grabbed my tickets and change, said "Thank you" and quickly move aside.

The ticket seller was so stone faced, never bothered to say "hello", "thank you", or "please". In fact, she didn't bother to say any unnecessary word to me at all. This stroked me so hard on my first day back in China, I thought: "man, the service industry needs to be improved." Later, after many bad service experiences, I don't know if I would be so sensitive anymore.

FYI: Soft sleepers have 4-berth compartments with full bedding provided. Lower berth costs 417 RMB for Beijing->Nanjing one-way per person, upper berth costs 400 RMB. Pray you can get a lower berth, cause you have to be pretty agile to climb to the upper berth. There is no ladder. All you get is a folding stepping pad, 4"* 4" in size, mounted between the upper and lower beds.
1. Beijing Train Station.


From the train station, I called Yuan, my high school classmate. She worked at Jian Wai SOHO, an office park very close to the train station. We decided to meet at her office for lunch. Dave and I took a taxi, what a mistake. The office build is literally 2 miles down the road, but because of the traffic restriction for the taxis (according to the driver), the taxi took the second ring loop, going south, U-turned, go north, then U-turned again, finally got back on Chang An Street. It took over 30 minutes to get there. It would have been much quicker if we had taken the bus, or the subway.

Yuan looked exactly the same as I saw her 5 years ago. We were best friends in high school. She is slightly older than me. She used to take care of me like a sister, and she still does. When the city you grew up with have changed so much that you feel like an stranger in your own city, one thing that helps to make the city still feel like a hometown is that, you know there are families and friends there who care about you.
2. Our lunch: 麻辣锅.


(To be continued)