vacation: the last K train

in china there are several different kinds of trains. K stands for "kuai", which means fast. ironically, it is the slowest train!! trains in the order of their fastness are like this: K, T, D, G. until recently, there were only 3, the G train is new!! but more on that in the next story. =) this story was the last K train i have taken and will probably take for quite awhile. the only real reason to take K trains is on long trips that cross long distances, especially between cities that aren't as big. the train station at yellow mountain is quite small, and it's not a large city, thus the need to take a K train.

we went down the mountain on the cable car, took a taxi to the place we'd left our luggage, and caught a bus there for an hour ride to the train station. then we waited at the train station for our supposedly 10 hour train ride (it turned out to be 13 hours, but whatever). we went up to the waiting room and settled into seats there, but began to be concerned when we didn't see our train's number on the list of trains, and there were other train numbers up there that were leaving after our train. we did NOT want to miss another train!! i was elected with seth as moral support to go ask, so armed with our tickets, we went back downstairs and tried to ask a train worker about our particular train. but instead of answering our question, he directed us to a different waiting room, the special soft sleeper waiting room, because we had soft sleeper tickets (as opposed to hard sleeper tickets, which are not as nice). so, we went back upstairs and told everyone we could go to this other smaller, nicer, empty, with air conditioning waiting room instead. this waiting room was smaller, but it was still BIG, and very empty--we were the only people in it! there weren't even any workers in there. so we made ourselves at home.
our train number was still not among the numbers scrolling on the screen, but we figured that the guy would have said something if we had tickets for at train that didn't exist...or something...so we temporarily put aside our worries.

betsy had to use the bathroom, but the women's bathroom was locked, leaving the men's bathroom as the only option. seth stood guard for her, though there was no one else anywhere near anyway. =)
at this point, we were rather bored, since we'd gotten there pretty early (did i mention we did NOT want to miss another train??), and hyper. this waiting room was a long skinny room with a rather wide aisle going down the middle between the seats. perfect for red light green light!! somehow i was chosen to be "it," and this was my view down the aisle when i called red light (yes, of course we really played!!):
scary...4 adults running towards me!! no wonder this is a children's game... =)
we somehow successfully played a whole game (can't remember who got to me first...) without anyone entering the waiting room, although we wondered if there were cameras hidden somewhere and chinese people watching us and laughing hilariously. after this, we still needed to wait, so we played cards. and some other foreigners were directed to come into the waiting room with us, so i think we were glad we weren't still playing red light green light. =) when the other foreigners came in, a train worker came in too, so we tried to ask again about our train number. this lady understood eventually and went away, and in a few minutes, several trains that had not been on the list before appeared, including ours.

i'm pleased to be able to say that we got on the train that left on time with no incidents and it was a normal train ride (by comparison!!). i think we told stories...and apparently other strange things happened that i don't fully remember. =)
our train was supposed to get us home at about 5:45 in the morning (eeek!!), so we woke up super early (plus alissa started to get sick in the middle of the night, so she got the least sleep of all...), but then the train kept not arriving...and stopping in other places...and we kept asking the train worker at each stop where we were and how far it was to our destination. she started ignoring us and she barely answered us (i think she didn't like us...or it was just too early in the morning?), but it was clear we hadn't reached where we were supposed to yet. so, our K train the SLOW fast train, arrived 3 hours late at our destination. but, it arrived. it was an uneventful trip. and the fact that it arrived late was not unexpected or surprising in my mind, therefore not stressful.

the last vacation story involves a G train, the new fast train!! wooo!!! and next week i get to take a D train from beijing back home, because yes, i am going to beijing again, tomorrow morning, for a work conference. wooo!!! i'm feeling dramatic for some reason. anyway, so i guess you will get to hear about all of the different kinds of trains.

i don't think i processed that i was going anywhere tomorrow until this evening when i knew i needed to pack and actually started doing so. it will be fun to travel together with all my coworkers--at least i hope it will!! i've never traveled with so many people at once.... we are flying there and taking a train back. we shall see!