西安（Xi'an）--the train

With our first 4 week "semester" of 2nd year Chinese over, the DSIC students split into two groups to go to either Datong, a small mountain area with giant Buddhas carved into mountain faces, or Xi'an, the ancient capital of China that, among other things houses the first Qin emperor's terra cotta army. Those of us that chose to go to Xi'an boarded a sleeper train at about 9:30pm on Friday and got underway. Up to that point I had never been on a train for more than a few hours, so I had no idea what I would think of the experience. Turns out that riding 软卧(soft bunk) is pretty comfortable and much more social of an experience than flying. On the way to Xi'an I rode with one other DSIC student as well as a retired Chinese high school teacher and a police officer. Living in close quarters with them for the night definitely forced me to explore the boundaries of my Chinese speaking capability for a few hours (there was nothing else to do heh).



As my cabinmates got tired, I decided that I couldn't yet call it a night and so headed out into the narrow hallway to check out the train. I thought that walking up and down the train might be interesting. For the most part the train was exactly what I expected: there were cabins full of mostly Chinese people either speaking, playing cards, or starting to head to sleep. The one surprise for me came in the form of some people sleeping on the floor of the compartments joining each car. I discovered that unlike in other areas, in China you can buy a train ticket that simply reserves you space on the train, without any cabin or designated area. This solution seemed at once elegant but at the same time stepping over sleeping people to enter different traincars reminded me that I was definitely in a developing country. After this exploration I played cards in a friend's cabin and pretty quickly after, crept back into my room to sleep. The next few days were going to take all the energy I could save up.