China's train ticketing system has a couple of quirks that made my trip a bit of a hassle. First, there's no central reservation system, so booking tickets online like you'd do with an airline is impossible. And second, any tickets must be purchased from the station that you're departing from. This is pretty much because of the aforementioned lack of central system--each station handles reservations only for trains leaving from that exact station. You can usually get an agent to deliver tickets to your hotel if you want to avoid the actual trip to the station ticket office, but this approach still requires you to be in the city you're departing from a decent amount of time in advance.
So on Saturday morning, I woke up in Hangzhou, hoping to be off to Qingdao on an overnight train departing Sunday. But Hangzhou doesn't have a train to Qingdao. This meant I had to get to Shanghai to buy a ticket to go to Qingdao, presuming said tickets weren't already sold out. Had they been, I would've flown, but it would've been a little more expensive. And frankly, I'm just sick of airports right now.
Luckily, trains between Hangzhou and Shanghai South are frequent, and it's quite easy to get tickets for the 90 minute ride just an hour in advance. The only little detail here is that the Hangzhou-Shanghai train goes to Shanghai South station, while my presumptive train the following day left from Shanghai's main rail station. So upon arriving in Shanghai, I first rode the subway across town to the other train station, before checking in at my hostel. Luckily, tickets were still available. I decided that first-class sleeper (~$55) for the 18-hour ride would be well worth the $15 premium over standard sleeper.
Having arrived in Shanghai around 6pm, I checked in at the hostel around 9pm. It was yet another really nice place, with a huge bar/restaurant filled with people around my age watching movies, drinking, and playing pool. To top it all off, I checked into a four-bunk room for $10/night and found that I had the whole room to myself.
The next day, I was woken around 8am by a guy checking in to my room. He was from Milwaukee, and had just arrived in Shanghai from Beijing via overnight train. We talked for a little bit, then grabbed some of the free breakfast in the hostel. After that I spent some time posting the Bangkok entry on this blog, then started repacking some of my stuff for the impending train ride.
I got to the station around 12:30pm for my 1:15pm train, and picked up a few things for the ride. My purchases consisted of: 4 bananas ($.50), 3 bottles of water ($.80), some White Rabbit Candy ($1.50), and canned "cafe latte" for the morning ($.40). I spent the rest of the time looking for an English-language newspaper, but was unsuccessful (and got several "are you crazy?" looks while asking at various newstands).
As I was waiting in line to board the train, I was approached by a guy about my age asking if he could talk to me for awhile (in English). This has happened a few times this summer, and invariably most people in China are at roughly the same English level: they know a stunning amount of vocabulary (no doubt drilled in by endless years of English class), but have great difficulty putting a sentence together. They'll quite openly tell you that they have very little chance to practice with native speakers. In speaking Mandarin I seem to have the opposite problem from most Chinese, as vocabulary is my limiting factor. That's not to say that my grammar is perfect by any means... it's good enough, though, as Chinese grammar is pretty damn simple. I also had Mandarin class this semester with a 5:1 student-teacher ratio, which helps.
Anyway, English-speaker-guy went off to his own car, and I went off to mine. The first class sleepers (more commonly "soft sleepers") have a standard bunk-bed configuration, with a lower bed and an upper bed. Two sets of these face each other to make up a four-bed compartment, which has a table, window, and door to the main hallway. There are eight or nine of these compartments per car.
When I got on, there were only two other guys in my cabin, although we'd pick up one more a few stops down the line. They started talking to each other about the train schedule (one of them didn't even know what time the train arrived), but then quickly turned to me and threw out a couple questions, probably wondering whether I'd understand if they talked about me while I was sitting there.
We ended up talking for a couple hours over a pretty wide (but predictable) range of subjects, mostly involving U.S. vs China comparisons of cities, food, cars, schools, etc. They, like many other Chinese people I've talked to, loved to talk about our impending elections, the war in Iraq, and our economy. I'm not stupid enough to start talking about similar subjects related to China, although I'd happily give them a piece of my mind if they ever came to the States.
I was certainly struggling through a lot of this conversation, and it was easy enough for them to lose me if they spoke quickly enough or with more complex words. Still, it made me happy that I took the train, as I got several hours of continuous practice for free.
Dinner was ￥21 if you took it to-go and ￥40 if you ate in the dining car, so I just took it back to my cabin. For those $3, I got a pretty good meal of chicken, rice, meatballs, and vegetables. By this time I'd already polished off two of the bananas, so I certainly wasn't going hungry. Two of the other three guys were getting off a few stops before Qingdao, and got to bed around 10pm. I was plenty ready to sleep by then, too. It might be the earliest I've gone to bed all summer, but sleeping off some of the remaining time seemed like a good idea.
Overall, it's a very comfortable way to travel. As I write this, I've been on this train for about 16 hours, and it's now 8am Monday morning. I slept until about 7:30, when the two getting off at Weifang left. We only have another hour or so until we reach Qingdao, although by the time you read this I will already be there, since there's no way for me to actually post from the train. I'm in Qingdao for the better part of the working week, leaving this Friday for a last three-day stint in Beijing before heading back home.
Another entry or two (with photos) from Qingdao will certainly be along, so stay tuned.
Interior of the cabin I was in..
The end of the line, in Qingdao.
No comments:
Post a Comment