Pre-Beijing Post

We have finally managed to get all of our train tickets for our long vacation. It was exceedingly stressful, and we required a lot of help from our school coordinators, but we did it! Now we just have to survive our train rides.

We are packing light, so one backpack per person, and it is hard to fit everything. My backpack is very swollen. Because of this, I decided not to bring my computer, and therefore cannot blog until I get back. Then I will probably blog a whole lot at once. You have been warned.

My schedule is as follows:

Wednesday, 26: Teach in the morning. Fast train to Guangzhou (1/2–1 hr). Evening in Guangzhou

Thursday, 27: Get up in the morning and take a train to the Yellow Mountains (18 hrs).

Friday, 28: Explore the Yellow mountain area.

Saturday, 29: Hike the mountain.

Sunday, 30: Get up in the morning and take a train to Nanjing (6 hrs). Afternoon in Nanjing. Board a train to Beijing at 11:00 pm (11 hrs, Standing tickets).

Monday, 1: Explore Beijing.

Tuesday, 2: Explore Beijing

Wednesday, 3: Explore Beijing

Thursday, 4: Explore Beijing. In the evening, get on an overnight train to Xian (13 hrs)

Friday, 5: Explore Xian (the terracotta warriors mostly)

Saturday, 6: At 1:30 pm, get on a train to Guangzhou (30 hrs)

Sunday, 7: Arrive in Guangzhou at 6:00 pm. Take slow train back to Zhongshan (2 hrs). Die.

Monday, 8: Try to be able to wake up at 6 in the morning and teach kids.

We have "hard seat" tickets (They're about like seats in a tour bus, so not really "hard") for all of the trains except the one eleven-hour standing ticket ride (meaning we don't have seats at all). I am not looking forward to that. I'm also not looking forward to the 30-hour Xian–Guangzhou. I really, really tried to get on a different train that cost the same and was only 21 hours, but it was sold out by the time we bought tickets. Yay.