The bullet train is probably my favorite part of China. At 300 Kilometers an hour (that's about 180 miles an hour) it's super fast and the cleanest way to travel, it is usually about the same or cheaper than flying domestically and generally, westerner friendly (as in, lots of English and Pinyin).
This is definitely an area that we could work on stateside. I know a lot of you are probably anti-pouring your tax dollars into an efficient cross-country train system, but hear me out.
If you could only see and smell the smog, I think you would change your mind. Or maybe if you realized how much cheaper it is, maybe we would finally see flight prices drop, too. You could take your families on vacation for less money and less potent chemicals so your grandkids would never have to smell what I smelled and inhale those potent fumes (that is unless they're crazy enough to take an internship in China).
Alright, alright, I'm done.
Whenever you travel in China, or in the world in general, you have to face a language barrier. Most of the world speaks English and most of Shanghai does, too, but that doesn't apply in Beijing. Language is far less common in Beijing than Shanghai.
In China, you also have to face the added struggle of food. Most brands, labels, even pictures, are simply unrecognizable and, unfortunately you don't always get an English-speaking stewardess with the food cart on the train. I packed snacks, but they weren't super filling.
Also, water.
Water is important.
And most train stations and even cars on the train have "water fountains." I only put this in quotations since it is less like a fountain and more like a faucet.
A faucet that emits boiling hot (as in 212 degrees Fahrenheit) water - again, it has to be that hot to get rid of the pollutants.
So make sure you have a good Chinese app on your phone (I recommend Pleco, it's free!), filling snack food, and a tough water bottle.
Along the way, we enjoyed a variety of passing scenery while listening to some awesome American music. Nick brought a headphone splitter at my request, and, I can't believe I'm admitting to something like this, but I thought it was supa' romantic. I finally got him to watch Fight Club, which he didn't really care for.
Can you believe that?
I have a cult tendency towards Fight Club and he treated like some chick flick!
Frick.
By the time we arrived to Beijing my mind was exhausted, I was starved, and dying of thirst. We were low on cash and needed to save it for the taxi so unfortunately we had to opt out of Nick's favorite Japanese restaurant, Yoshinoya since they refused the card, and go for McDonald's.
Not very cultural, I know, but at least they took the card, and, well, okay, I will say it, I was dying for some America.
Afterwards we headed to the taxi line, which, unlike the Shanghai train station, is unfortunately full of illegal taxi drivers harassing you with "where you going? I take you." Trust me when I say to always just hop in the extremely long (probably 30 minute wait) taxi queue, it will save you a lot of money and stress.
The driver was kind enough to do his best to help us find the correct alley way to walk down to our hostel (it was built into a traditional Chinese hostel in a Chinese alleyway neighborhood, don't worry they're safe, I promise) and even called the hostel to ensure he was right.
See, the Chinese people can be nice and even helpful sometimes.
Our hostel, Sitting On The City Walls Courtyard House, was awesome and the hosts were super nice. There was a nice sitting and garden-like area in the center and they served great meals and even provided a guide to do-it-all in the 3 days we had featuring public transit (buses and metros both) that we could use to cut down on time. I would highly recommend them, if not for anything else but a pretty decent location.
Much love.
