vacation: THE TRAIN (part 1)

when we left the summer palace, it was time to start thinking about the fact that our time in beijing was ending--our train to huang shan (yellow mountain) was leaving that night around 10 PM. we needed to eat dinner and head to the train station. when we left the summer palace though, it was still pretty early, maybe around 4 PM, so there was time for us to go to one more place--the bird's nest!
i really enjoyed going here and seeing this, because it was a familiar site to me, a place that i'd seen on tv while i was still in the US, back before i was even thinking about actually coming to china at all. so i got to stand next to the same place that looked so impressive from aerial photographs on tv. here are betsy and me and alissa in front of the bird's nest:
we didn't go inside, because it's just a stadium inside anyway, and we didn't stay there that long, but we walked partway around it, and got to see its structure up close. very strange design! i wonder why this design was chosen to begin with... i really enjoyed seeing it though, because i like interesting buildings.
there was another interesting building that we could see from the bird's nest, apparently some dragon something or other hotel. for me and charis, anything strange or unusual is usually worth posing for a picture with, in which we imitate the strange and unusual thing (usually statues, but buildings can work too).
in this case, it turned out to be for your amusement, because it didn't turn out all that great! (i really don't think we look like that building, do you?)

we left the bird's nest probably around 5:30 PM, stopped to get drinks, and then headed to a restaurant for dinner. we had checked out of the hotel that morning, so all our luggage was in the van. the driver took us to a restaurant that he knew, and it was very good food. we had a good time at dinner, and we had until 8 PM before we had to leave for the train station. the driver told us it would take about an hour to get to the station, and we wanted to get to the station in plenty of time. we ended up leaving around 8:15 from the restaurant, because some of us went to brush our teeth, and then when we came out into the lobby of the restaurant after doing that, our driver was doing kung fu demonstrations. and it turned out that he could, from a regular standing position, drop straight to the floor in the splits!! it was really quite impressive!

on our way to the train station, i imagine we were singing or telling crazy stories, as we often did during our many van rides around beijing (they are all lumped together in my head now, but it usually happened, so it probably was at this point too!). after awhile of driving, we noticed there was a lot of traffic though, and we were moving pretty slowly, so we became a little more quiet. it can become a little less exciting to be in a van when you are barely moving. after awhile, we started to wonder how far we really were from the train station still, and our friends who spoke chinese were telling us that the driver was starting to be worried if we would be able to get to the train station on time. we weren't really that far from the station, but the traffic, because of an accident, was so bad that we were barely moving at all.

our driver had taken very good care of us throughout our time at beijing, making recommendations to us, taking us to good places to eat, and driving us everywhere we needed to go. at this point, because we are stuck in traffic and not moving, he turned the van towards the side of the road, drove off the road pavement and onto the side of the road and starts driving past all of the barely moving cars, so he can turn onto another street. so we are bouncing along, and then he starts to take another route, and we are actually moving at this point, although still somewhat slowly, but we had been barely moving for so long that he is still worried that we won't make it to the train station in time for our train.

now, strangely, at this point, i was not feeling too worried, and i don't know that many other people in our group were either, although we had have had good reason to be concerned about missing our train. somehow i've learned a lot since being here about not worrying about things that are beyond my control, because in china, there are many things beyond my control! there wasn't anything i could possibly do to make us get to the train station faster. we did have to make a decision though--should the driver continue to drive us and hope he will be able to get there on time, or should we take his suggestion that we may have a better chance of getting there on time if he takes us to the nearest subway stop and we make our way to the train station the rest of the way underground? at this point there is about half an hour or 20 minutes before our train leaves. well, we choose the subway because the traffic is beyond anyone's control, and he says he cannot guarantee he will get us there on time and that he thinks we will have a better chance on the subway. so he stops the van at a subway stop. it's raining. we unload all the backpacks and small suitcases from the van and make our way down the stairs. some people rush to get all the luggage through security while someone who speaks chinese buys all ten of us subway tickets and tries to figure out where we need to transfer to get to the train station. this is all worked out fairly quickly, and then it is time to run! we are all running through the subway tunnels, somewhat slowly, being hampered by the luggage. i'm towing a small rolling suitcase behind me and i have a backpack on. at a few points, i have to carry the suitcase up or down stairs. it's fairly heavy because it has all my clothes in it plus a fair amount of food we'd been saving for our time on yellow mountain. we get on one train, glad to be able to just stand for a little bit. there is maybe about fifteen minutes left. as charis would say, this is 不好 (bu hao - no good). according to the number of stops we have to go all together, it's possible for us to get there on time, but we are definitely cutting it close! charis is not being very optimistic here, but i am still not feeling worried! whatever happens, happens. (i almost feel like i must be crazy to have this reaction because in the past i would not have reacted to this kind of situation in this way!)
we wait a few stops, and then we get off to transfer to the line that will take us to the train station. we run through the subway tunnels again to get to the right line. my suitcase is becoming rather cumbersome at this point, to carry up and down stairs. some people in our group are beginning to lag behind, but we are staying all in the same general area. charis and i decide to switch her shoulder bag with my suitcase so that she can carry the heavier one for awhile, and we keep running. we all get to the correct place together to wait for the next subway and there is just one or two minutes to wait. once we get on, it is just a couple of stops to the train station, and there is less than 15 minutes left. we get off the subway, make our way up the stairs and over to the train station entrance.

as we approach the train station running in the rain with rolling suitcases behind us, we see a crowd (not a line) of people working on entering the station, and we see our driver! (he had kept driving and arrived just before we did so that he could help us however he could and make sure we got on the train!) i have all the tickets, and i get them out and am giving them to each person as they run past me, and our driver is calling to us to follow him. we head towards the crowd of people at the entrance, but we aren't able to all stay together in that crowd as we enter. we get our luggage through the x-ray machine as quickly as possible. as i actually enter the station, i see charis, alissa, betsy, and two of the family's kids half way up the escalator towards the waiting rooms, and i see seth and the rest of the family behind me. the driver is right with me, so i follow him, and the others follow a bit behind. by the time i get up the escalator, the other five people ahead had continued on, the driver is urging us to follow him, and we begin to run down the long hallway of waiting rooms that lead to the different platforms. of course our platform is at the *very* end of this gigantic hallway! we are running, dodging people, the driver, then me, then seth, then one of the kids, then the mom, and then the dad, this single file of people spread apart, but all running!

everything up to this point kind of seemed in slow motion, but everything happens very quickly now. i reach the thirteenth platform panting, right behind the driver and notice a number of things all at once: the train is sitting at the platform below, there are no people on the platform, there is one attendant standing at the top of the stairs and i am shoving my ticket towards her, the train is starting to move, the dad of the family is right behind me asking her things in chinese, she is not taking my ticket, the mom and the son show up, the lady is saying things in chinese, i'm saying things to the family about the other people being ahead of us, it is clear that we are not getting on the train. the driver takes all of our tickets very quickly, and rushes away to see if he can get them changed to another train.

and then everything stops. we are all standing there. seth, who was at the end making sure no one was left behind, appears. the other five who were ahead of us got on the train and are on their way to yellow mountain. we will have to figure out what to do. we start to assess the situation out loud. two of the family's children are on the train. those children don't have their passports--their mom has them. you can't check into a hotel without a passport if you are a foreigner. the children also don't have a phone. betsy and alissa don't have a phone because they don't live in china. we decide to call charis. i take out my phone and i call her, but she doesn't answer. i text her. we all move towards the middle of the end of this giant hallway, pile the suitcases that are with us all together, and most of us sit down. i sit on a wet spot, so i stand up again. i try to call charis again and she doesn't answer. then i see her shoulder bag sitting on a suitcase on the ground. her phone is in that bag?? yes, i open the bag and the phone is there. her passport is there too. she has my suitcase!! she has *all* my clothes. we wait. i sit down again, in a non-wet spot.

the driver returns and sits down with us and explains the situation. he could exchange our tickets. he didn't get much farther than this because we start to ask him what the other people in our group will do without their passports, what ways can they contact us if none of them have a phone? and, pointing back down the hallway, he says, "他们在那儿，" (tamen zai nar) which means, "they are over there." the mom's entire physical demeanor changes to show great relief! i hadn't realized how worried she must have been that two of her children were on a train ride across china separated from the family! apparently the other five people, because they didn't have the direction of the driver, read the wrong platform number on the sign posting which train was departing from which platform, and turned down the wrong hallway of platforms. so they couldn't find the right platform, and then the train disappeared from the list of trains because it had left, so they just sat down where they were to wait.

the driver explained the ticket situation to us--he was able to exchange our tickets and the tickets of the other five people, which he had also collected, to tickets for a train for the next day. the only problem with these tickets is that they were not sleeper tickets, for this 17 hour train ride. they were not seats for the 17 hour overnight train either. they were standing tickets. no other tickets were available. we begin to discuss possibilities of what we should do, but then cut the discussion short since we should join the rest of the group and discuss it all together. so we walk (there is no hurry now) back down to the beginning of the long hallway, where we are reunited with the rest of our group. this is a crazy moment in life--missing an overnight train, being stranded in the beijing train station with no where to spend the night! so we are all standing in a circle with our luggage in the center, excitedly discussing the situation (especially charis). we are all crazy with the strange excitement and adventure of it all, and as we all stand around him, our youngest explorer just collapses in his own craziness in the middle of the luggage.
we continue to discuss the situation and come to the conclusion that there are two options: take the train to yellow mountain and arrive a day later and only spend one night there, or get tickets to take a train directly back to wuxi instead. thinking about the standing train tickets for 17 hours, we decide that only one day spent in yellow mountain would not necessarily be worth it, so if we can get train tickets directly back to wuxi and be refunded for our standing tickets and the tickets we have from yellow mountain back to wuxi, that would be better. so the driver and the dad of the family go to see if they can exchange the tickets.

most everyone else sits down near the luggage to wait, and the excitement of the strange situation is dying down, but charis is still standing and filled with craziness from what is going on and continues talking about the whole situation very excitedly, and because she is so excited, i can't sit down either. the kids are even telling her that she is being crazy and her siblings are ignoring her. the mom decides to go help with the tickets, so we send charis with her so that everyone else can be sane. finally i sit down just to wait and calm down too. betsy and alissa are journaling outside this picture, seth is journaling in this picture, the kids are playing video games, sleeping, and just waiting, and i'm reading and writing, on the floor of the beijing train station at 10:30 PM or so.
when everyone comes back from assessing the ticket situation, this is what we find out: there are absolutely no tickets to wuxi for the next 10 days. so the only way we can get back to wuxi (apart from trying to book an expensive flight or do something drastic like hire a driver) is to get to yellow mountain so that we can use the tickets we have from yellow mountain to wuxi to get back to wuxi. so we are resigned to standing tickets for a 17 hour train ride that are at 3:30 PM the next day. our only choice for the night is to find a hotel to stay in. so around 11 PM, we head back to the van, that we thought we had already said good-bye to, load the luggage back in the van, and start to drive to a hotel that the driver knows of. we get there, and there is not room for 10 people. so we drive to another hotel. still not enough room. we head to another one. during this drive, we are all pretty much crazy with the weirdness of what is happening, of being stranded in beijing, of missing a train, of the thought of having standing tickets, so we are telling crazy stories and singing, even more than before. i can't even remember, but i know that we were weird! after the third hotel that didn't have room for us though, we were quieting down. at the fourth hotel, there was finally actually enough room for 10 people. we arrived about 1 AM and headed to sleep almost immediately.

well, this post is called "the train," and we are not even on the train yet! that is how crazy this story is. there is more to come, but this is long enough already. until next time!