Morgan and a Train to Beijing

Soon after recovering from not being able to walk, it was time for summer vacation so I only spent a short time back in the lab before leaving town.

As part of the vacation, an old friend of mine, Morgan, came to visit. We started in Hangzhou and I showed her around with a few friends. Then we went to Shanghai to visit some of the more famous sites. We spent one night there before returning to Hangzhou for a few more days. We had planned to take a sleeper train to Beijing to meet up with some other friends but I failed to get train tickets in time so we were forced to postpone our trip a few days and take hard seats on the 16 hour train.

The train ride was quite interesting as it was full of people - so many that more than half the people in the carriage could not sit down. We were seated opposite two mothers with their two young boys who did not sleep well, which added to the interest. I was sitting next to a girl from Hangzhou, Eve, who later became a close friend. We started talking because her English was not too bad. Her family were sitting near by and they gave us food during the trip. We also talked about the soccer because that night was the final in the World Cup. A friend who was watching the game back in Hangzhou sent me frequent updates on the game via SMS and we were all sad when we found out who won.

That night many people did not sleep and just stood there or slept laying on the floor of the train. It was a surreal experience.

The next morning atendents came around with boiling water for tea and instant noodles. For obvious reasons I was quite nervous about this activity.

Eve, the girl I was sitting next to, got off about an hour before Beijing. We decided to stay in contact.

When we arrived we found somewhere to stay and something to do.


This is some mountain we passed in the train.