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Beijing, just as hot and smoggy as we remembered

Beijing, China


Rainbow in Harbin right before the last piece of paperwork for the adoption fell into place. It must be a sign of good things to come.
The hope was short lived once we arrived at the train station. I think train stations in China are in a special level of Dante's hell. We have learned that we need to take a native with us, not for the language but for the general know-how of how to negotiate the maze of people and customs. Even our buddy said to us, he hated the place and thought there must be no where like it in America. I tried to explain my theory of where the train station fit in Dante's level of hells, but he had never read Dante. That made me appreciate my liberal arts degree, and I wondered how I might look at things differently if I had just always memorized facts and formulas my whole life.
Getting on the train was off to a good start, our buddy was able to get down to the train with us and was all ready to help us on the train with the luggage when we looked at the ticket again and realized that Chris was not a few compartments different than us, but 12 cars away. So they made a run for the other end of the train. I loaded with the girls. Our car was not full of students. Nor were any other foriegners on our car. Our compartment was not happy to see our white shining faces. In fact one lady on the top bunk started whining and moaning that she could not sleep her with us. Then this dude tried to get us to trade our middle bunk tickets for the highest bunk. Like he was doing us a favor...no thanks! So we squeeze onto our bunks and Princess has grown a lot since our last train voyage. It was not comfy sharing with her. The bottom bunk where you are suppose to get to sit until night time was occupied by two people already pretending to be asleep. Everything was clean enough, but with in minutes the smells of China were everywhere. The conductor came around and collected the tickets. He gives you a credit card one that you carry on the train and then when you get off, they give you back your paper one which you must have to escape the train station. So whining lady sets in on him, but he says in English, "I like America, Obama has a warm heart. I feel kindly towards Americans. I'm learning English" Yahoo, whining lady was truly shoved aside and he told me, " move", so he could talk to teenager. This is always interesting to watch your teenager get hit on, this is the first time someone has told me to move so they could talk to her. I didn't know how to take it, but I was thinking this guy could make my next 10 hours much worse and I was pretty sure teenager was going to shut him down. Teenager is pretty clever, so as he practiced his English, she just answered in Chinese. It was quite funny, and I admire teenagers tact in dealing with him. He took it in stride and said to me, "I'm practicing my English and she's practicing Chinese!"
So with our tickets turned in, we were free to move about. So we walked the 12 cars to see Chris. It took 10 minutes. And what do you know, his car is considerably better. He had the second bunk but there was much more headroom. Nobody was eating in his car, the ac was cranking. So lucky! We only visited for a few minutes because they cut off the lights at 10, and it really is dark.
So we are hurrying back and this guy sticks out his foot and trips Princess. She went flying and cut her shoulder on a ladder. It was so sad. She's a tough little thing, so when she started crying big tears, I knew it was pretty painful. The guy didn't even say he was sorry. We found some female conductors and showed them her arm. You would think they would have a 1st aid kit, but no. The lights went off and we were waiting for a bandaid when this older woman told me she was a teacher of medicine. She wanted to put something that looked like a raison on her shoulder. Our Obama fan conductor came to our rescue. He talked with the medicine teacher and whipped out his nail clippers and popped the thing and put it on Princess. It must of helped, they gave her the thing to use later. Almost all of the conversation took place in Chinese and Princess like her sister is much more fluent than I, but she was really facinated by the medicine thing. She stopped by every emergency lighting fixture to try to examine "the nut".
Back at the bunk...teenager had stayed behind to guard or stuff. Whining lady convinced some guy to switch tickets with her. Well just before the lights went off, both guys on the top bunk striped to their briefs before climbing up to the top bunk. Of course Teenager was not pleased and quite creeped out.
So we try to sleep. About 2 in the morning our Obama fan conductor and a cop came and woke up the guy above us. The very one who wanted to switch tickets with us. Well apparently he tried to use a child's ticket and he need to correct this situation immediately. So in his briefs he climbed down and paid at least 100RMB. And just in case I didn't know what had gone on, the conductors explained to me in English. What was really amazing to me was that he didn't even have a flashlight. The whole thing was done with the shining of the cell phone screen.
We made it to Beijing. There is nothing to remind you of how many people are on the planet like the Beijing train station.
We used the subway to get to the airport, where we caught the free shuttle to our hotel.
We met the social worker and successfully exchanged paperwork. She showed us the gourmet import food store and the best Mexican food in Beijing. And we went to the English book store, before becoming too exhausted


permalink written by  carseat tourist on July 10, 2009 from Beijing, China
from the travel blog: carseat tourist's Travel Blog
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