Getting to Xi’an via Night Train

Note: I’m in Beijing now, but still posting content that I’ve written up in my offline journal. I’m waiting until I get back to the U.S. to post my overall impressions of each city and the country.

I didn’t do much sight seeing on my last day in Shanghai. I sort of hung around the hostel to get caught up journaling. I did leave the hostel to visit a store “recommended” by one of my guide books. I found the store and was immediately disappointed. The store was located in the French Concession and I decided to do a bit of walking around. I eventually found a store that sold CDs, DVDs, and Bluray movies and music. I decided to take advantage of local prices and bought 2 CDs and 1 Bluray movie. I headed back to the hostel after that.

After hanging out for a couple of hours, I grabbed a taxi from my hostel to take me to the Shanghai Rail Station. I suppose I could have had the hostel call a taxi for me, but I walked up the street a little bit and caught a random taxi. In my best Mandarin I said, “wo xu yao qu Shanghai ho che zhan” or loosely translated – “I need to go to the Shanghai Rail Station”. Apparently, it worked because I didn’t miss my train

The taxi dropped me off at the rail station. I immediately noticed the massive amount of people at the rail station – both waiting for people to arrive and departing on trains. It felt more like an airport with the number of people there.

Once I was through the security checks and in the station, I looked at the board displaying the train departure information. I found my departure lounge and looked for places to eat. I can now confirm that KFC in Shanghai tastes like KFC in the U.S.

After some waiting the train began to board. The Chinese concept of forming an orderly line is about the same as the what I experienced in India. So I wasn’t really surprised.

I checked my ticket for the car and seat #. I found car 6, seat 30 with no problems. The cabin was a bit smaller than I expected. There are 4 bunks in each soft sleeper cabin and 6 for the hard sleepers. I had the top bunk of a soft sleeper.

I shared the cabin with 2 Ukraineans and 1 Chinese which made the conversation somewhat limited as the Ukraineans knew very limited English and no Mandarin while the Chinese knew no Russian and no English and since my Mandarin was limited…well you get the idea.

The train ride to Xi’an was about 14 hours. I slept for most of it, but get get a chance the next morning to observe the countryside. The country side was mostly rural. I could see people working in the fields basically going about their daily routine.

Arriving at Xi’an, it felt like the rail station wasn’t that busy. Once I stepped outside the station, I sensed how busy it really was as there was a crowd of people waiting to meet people outside the station. I met my host from the hostel with no problem and proceeded to the hostel via public bus.

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Tags: China, perspective, shanghai, Travel, Xian

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 10th, 2009 at 9:51 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.