Hong Kong Details: Part 1 of ?

Day 1) On the eve of the 29th of September Shawn and I began what would be the most horrible train experience of our lives. With 4 people in every 3 person seat and thousands (I say thousands because most of you know I tend to exaggerate) of people standing in the aisles, we began our 16+ hour overnite trian ride to Xi'an. This train actually took longer than it does to get from Minneapolis to Beijing. Usually Shawn and I love the trains, but usually we get the "hard sleepers" and this time we eneded up with hard seats. We were travelling with Becky, Val (the two new FOC teachers) and a group of their medical students. During the ride there was a little girl who had a standing ticket, so I invited her to sit on my lap so she wouldn't have to stand so long. She was a blast except for the fact that she kept hitting Shawn in the face and everywhere, and eventually bit my thumb and drew blood. She did, however, mimic the alphabet with great pronunciation. She got to leave the train around midnight. We did not. There were at least a hundred people in our car with "standing" tickets. We were fairly close to the bathroom which was nice because it meant we only had to crawl over about 20 people to get to the bathroom, but horrible because of the smell. There was a guy sitting on the ground directly in front of the bathroom gnawing on a chicken leg. It was disgusting. Shawn was to take the LSAT in a few days and this was not the way to start it. He did not sleep a wink.

Day 2) That morning we watched as the train that had left from the same station but an hour later passed us. Not encouraging. When we finally did get off the train we went to find the guy who was supposed to have made reservations for all of us. We would have made our own, but we were told they were already made. We literally walked around for hours trying to find a place to stay that the students we were with could afford. Finally Shawn and I left the group and went to our usual hostel and "splurged" for the hefty price of $7 a night. Then, naturally, came the nap. I woke up hours before Shawn did and went walking around the Muslim Quarter. It's fun for me. We had one of the famous Xi'an meals with the whole group (plus Becca who had come from America to visit me the week before and then went to see a friend in Xi'an). I love the mutton in China. Hao Chi. We skipped the fountain show because we'd seen it and Shawn needed to study. I read most of "A Moveable Feast" and decided that I really love non fiction and find it much easier to read than fiction.