It's Not Quite the Hogwarts Express...

Sunday evening, we boarded the Tianjin to Xi'an Train.

And immediately wondered if the lady with the food cart would bring

chocolate frogs or every-flavor jelly beans.

 I've only ridden one train before (not counting the small one that ran around my 

grandfather's farm in Idaho), and that was just a quick 1-hour trip to Paris from Orleans

when we needed to take Alice to the American Embassy to get her passport, almost 15 years ago.

We could have flown to Xi'an, but I wanted the experience of the sleeper train.

We did buy "soft sleeper" tickets (only 4 bunks to a room, with a door), as opposed to

"hard sleeper" (6 bunks and no door), or hard seats.  (Kevin and I got to share a room with

a Chinese couple.  Awkward at first but okay.)

 The compartments were cozy and comfortable.  Since it was General Conference weekend (but being

a half-day ahead, not all the sessions were finished yet), we downloaded the first session

and watched it as we traveled along.

The train is electric and so smooth that we were under way before we even

realized we were moving.

 When Nathan got tired of being too cozy in the room,

someone would stand with him in the hallway

and it didn't take long for a crowd to gather.  With cameras in hand.

He got that a lot, the entire week. Spread across China, there are 

hundreds of pictures of Nathan and whoever was holding him at the time.

 We were hoping for an Agatha Christie mystery to pop up,

but none did, 

 so we passed the time in a variety of ways. 

 And I found out that Nathan loves books--only 8 months old but will sit still 

for the entire book.  And even several books!

And the food cart?  No, not chocolate frogs or jelly beans,

just noodle buckets.  (Less than a dollar each).  And only spicy beef ones.  (In the stores there are all kinds of varieties).  These are ten times better than American ramen noodle packs.

At the end of the car was a hot water dispenser, as in boiling hot water.

Open your bucket, take out the collapsible fork and flavor packets,

add water and let sit for a few minutes.  Add both flavor packets (one is dry powder, 

one is liquid and oily), and voila!  Dinner!  And the next morning it was breakfast!

After dinner, we all got ready for bed,

Nathan got put to bed on the floor between the bottom bunks (with a blanket and suitcases

corralling him), and he slept well with the movement of the train.

The rest of us took a while to figure out we could close the curtains so

the lights of towns didn't blind us as we passed through.

Still, we were on the "slow" train, which meant it stopped at every town along the way.

Starts were smooth.  Stops were clang! bumpy! as the cars jostled each other.

And as that happened about every 30-45 minutes, all night long, it was a very long night.

Still, I'm sure I did sleep because my dreams contained trains, and stations, and so on.

The next morning, as we drew near Xi'an, we were dismayed to see flecks of rain on the

train windows.  The weather forecast hadn't mentioned rain!

But it all cleared away once we got there.

We had plenty of time to get up, eat breakfast (noodles again), before moving on

to the next leg of our adventure--seeing Xi'an, an ancient capital of China.

And my train experience was a memorable one.