Train Tales

In China, trains are a very popular way to travel because China is such a big, solid land mass and they are very cheap. I’ve ridden on trains in the US and in China, but it was only for an hour or two. I can tell you now that I do not like riding on trains overnight and it all calls back to be being too tall (it’s been pretty easy to stick to this theme without even trying).

Friday November 10th, we had a program trip to historical Xi’an. When I was in China last summer, this was another city we came to because this is where the Terracotta Warriors are. Friday night at around 5:30pm our train departed. We had one whole car to ourselves and then some other kids were in the car over. It was fun having all of us jammed into one car, but it was especially hard for me to get around. I think there were 10 sections of the car and each section had six bunks. I got the top bunk of our section and I was fine with that because I heard that it was a little longer. Well that person was wrong because it was the same as every other one and my feet were off the end by about five inches. I didn’t care about that though. What I found the worst to be was the bar that was installed to ensure I didn’t roll off the bed. When I laid flat on my stomach, my right arm was directly up against the bar and my left was against the wall. Anyway at 6:30am we arrived in Xi’an and started our Amazing Race (like the TV show).

Our first objective was to find out how to get to our hotel. This was easy and everyone even got there at the same time. We were all broken up into 19 groups of four and during the day we would go to different places around town and find answers to tell our teachers, so they would give us the next hint. I thought it was interesting way to get us out and about, but many other people really thought it was stupid because they didn’t want to be forced to go to certain places. We were able to go at a leisurely pace if we wanted and my group just went with the flow of the game. We finished 8th overall, so we won nothing.

During the game I got some of my best stares. My group members would watch people after we passed by them to see their reactions because in front of us they would just say something and stare, but after they passed they would start hitting each other in excitement. One little kid walked by and yelled out, “Mom! His shoes are so big!” Another funny one was when a girl started turning her head to the left as we passed by and then her boyfriend tilted her head back forward.

That night we went to the big pagoda where every night they have a big fountain show.




On Sunday, we went to see the Terracotta Warriors, which is kind of hard to talk about and nothing really spectacular happened anyway.





Afterwards, we went to the Hot Springs where the Emperor bathed. My friends and I walked around for a little bit and then decided to get foot massages. While we were getting them, my friend next to me had a nice, gentle girl and I had some middle-aged guy that was killing my feet with his knuckles. When I get massages I laugh a lot of the time from the energy coming out or something, so I was in a lot of pain, but I could only laugh. This got my friends laughing too, which got the masseuses laughing at us.

That night we had another fun 12-hour train ride, but this time I got the bottom bunk, which was relatively better. Luckily after we got to Beijing at 6am, we didn’t have to go to class.

Last Friday, we went to go see Beijing Acrobats and they blew our minds. Our group got there pretty early and we got front row seats. There were unicycles, bowl balancing, hoop jumping, pole-jumping, tight rope walking, etc. After the show ended we went outside and all the kids that were in the show were already in there bus to leave. We have no idea how they got all their stuff, got changed, and managed to beat us out the door and it will forever be a mystery.