Leaving Beijing was on the books today.
It was bittersweet. My friend of 3 days, who is a master of guiding, humor and connection with strangers was soon to be separated from us and I was sad about that.
Julia had found a place in my heart and to some extent my separation anxiety also related to the fact that without her, we'd still be trying to get out of a Beijing train station after arriving from Mongolia! She was the person who not only taught us about Chinese history and tradition in Beijing, but also made sure we stayed hydrated, found bathrooms regularly (gave me toilet paper when I had no tissue left!) checked us into the hotel, suggested extracurricular events of interest, bought all our entrance tickets and organized all our transportation in and around the city. She was always waiting for us in the morning and never left until we were safely tucked into our hotel in the evening.
Julia had found a place in my heart and to some extent my separation anxiety also related to the fact that without her, we'd still be trying to get out of a Beijing train station after arriving from Mongolia! She was the person who not only taught us about Chinese history and tradition in Beijing, but also made sure we stayed hydrated, found bathrooms regularly (gave me toilet paper when I had no tissue left!) checked us into the hotel, suggested extracurricular events of interest, bought all our entrance tickets and organized all our transportation in and around the city. She was always waiting for us in the morning and never left until we were safely tucked into our hotel in the evening.
Oh and one more thing... No-one mentioned that in China a lot of people don't want to take your cash and that makes it difficult to buy food and other important things! Let me be clear; I don't mean they wont take US dollars, I mean they won't take physical money - their own currency, Chinese Yuen. Instead you are expected to line your smart phone camera up with a QR code on the counter and pay using one of two electronic methods, directly from your Chinese bank account. For sure, if you are Chinese and have a Chinese bank account and a Chinese phone and a mediocre grasp of Chinese language, this might be very convenient. On the other hand, if you are us, you are just mostly confused and frustrated and hungry. So on several occasions, our beloved Julia, spent extra time with us and paid for street food and such with her phone so that we could have the full experience. In short, I was going to really miss her.
It appeared the feeling was mutual - or she was just an excellent travel guide and even better person; She gave us her cell number and said if we were to have any issues, anytime, anywhere in China or if we needed help communicating with or finding our next guide for some reason, we could call her and she would help.
It appeared the feeling was mutual - or she was just an excellent travel guide and even better person; She gave us her cell number and said if we were to have any issues, anytime, anywhere in China or if we needed help communicating with or finding our next guide for some reason, we could call her and she would help.
NOTE: If you are planning your own trip to China and need an excellent travel agent (Ruby Zhou) or a guide for Beijing and beyond (Julia) then let me know. I would be more than happy to recommend both and give you contact details.
Onward:
Julia had mentioned earlier that we'd never have to brave the Beijing train station by ourselves or find our fast train to Xi'an on our own. She had plans to walk us all the way to the train door. We expressed gratitude and said "oh you are so sweet, we could probably find it by ourselves" to which she replied "I have a perfect record - none of my clients have ever missed their trains or flights. I don't want you to break that record". Yeah... she is nothing if not honest and while her level of honesty might come across as blunt in the USA, the fact is that when a person who speaks English as a second language (or third, since she also speaks French) says things so bluntly, it's endearing and completely understandable.
Plus we really appreciated being walked through the ticket line, the security check point and all the way down the platform. The train station (one of 4 main ones in Beijing) is complete bedlam. Of the 23 million or more people who call the city home, it's not unreasonable to guess that a million of them happened to be there when we were and needed to cut in front of us at every opportunity.
Plus we really appreciated being walked through the ticket line, the security check point and all the way down the platform. The train station (one of 4 main ones in Beijing) is complete bedlam. Of the 23 million or more people who call the city home, it's not unreasonable to guess that a million of them happened to be there when we were and needed to cut in front of us at every opportunity.
Is it bad to want to push old people out of the way??? They are the worst offenders in China, constantly shoving and pushing, cutting queues and disregarding personal space. We have assigned seat numbers so what exactly is the advantage to getting there 10 seconds faster than me?!
We took the "fast train" to Xi'an. Not one of the mag-lev trains - there is only one in China, in Shanghai - but fast none-the-less. For the most part we traveled at about 300km/hr all the way to Xi'an, about 4 hours. The seats comfortable, the leg room generous and the hostesses uniformed and perfectly manicured. I only have one complaint. Coffee: $4 for a mediocre cup that came with one tiny pod of non-dairy creamer. I asked for a second tiny pod and was told "no". What?! OMG, for $4 you'd think they could spare another half teaspoon, but no. No more creamer for you!
We took the "fast train" to Xi'an. Not one of the mag-lev trains - there is only one in China, in Shanghai - but fast none-the-less. For the most part we traveled at about 300km/hr all the way to Xi'an, about 4 hours. The seats comfortable, the leg room generous and the hostesses uniformed and perfectly manicured. I only have one complaint. Coffee: $4 for a mediocre cup that came with one tiny pod of non-dairy creamer. I asked for a second tiny pod and was told "no". What?! OMG, for $4 you'd think they could spare another half teaspoon, but no. No more creamer for you!
Arrival in Xi'an was at about 6 pm. Not so late really, but already getting dark. The train stations in Xi'an was even crazier despite only being a city of about 14 million. We followed signed out to an exit and hoped like heck our new guide would be able to find us in the crowd. Mark and I were needles in a haystack and I don't care what quality of passport picture China Highlights had sent to our guide, there would be no way to identify us in a stream of thousands of commuters, would there?
And just like that, we rounded another bend and emptied out onto a large concourse inside the train station... Something like Waterloo, for my Brit friends to compare it to. Right in front of us was a 5 foot nothing Chinese woman about my age, holding a paper sign that read "Mark and Dallice". A sight for sore eyes. We were already overwhelmed and she was a smiley wee thing.
It was here that we met Lily, our guide for the Xi'an area and our nanny for the next 3 days.
Lily got us safely to our hotel (in car with our new driver too) and made sure we had everything we needed for the night. That meant checked in, luggage hauled up to room, letting us know the protocol for connecting to wifi, hours and location for breakfast in the hotel and a meeting time for tomorrow morning. She also gave us some short walking instructions for finding a bite to eat near the hotel tonight.
Game over. We were tired, the room was excellent again and it was good to be "home". Nice to have a place to unpack, wash underwear and socks in the bathroom (it's necessary!) and exhale.
We found some sort of cross between a burger, panini and quesadilla for dinner and even ice cream on a stick, then it was lights out.
We found some sort of cross between a burger, panini and quesadilla for dinner and even ice cream on a stick, then it was lights out.
... No wonder I'm so behind on blogging. Downtime is hard to find/create in China with this amazing and exhausting itinerary. No rest for the wicked. Tomorrow we hit the Terracotta Warriors!
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