If it's Saturday, it must be Chengdu ...

So far, it’s been a whirlwind of cities!  We landed in Shanghai on Monday, April 25, drove to Suzhou, spent the night in Suzhou; visited the school there on Tuesday, took the train to Nanjing that afternoon, spent two nights in Nanjing, flew to Chongqing on Thursday, spent the night there (had to sleep fast!), and were on a train to Chengdu early Friday morning!  Whew!!!!

The trains we’ve taken are high-speed trains traveling close to 300km/hour. The scenery whizzes by!  Getting a ticket and figuring out the train station are different.  We need our passport number to purchase a ticket and the agent at security scrutinizes the passport and ticket very carefully.  I tried to tell myself this was simply because looking at Arabic letters/numbers was different than reading Chinese characters, but still … does make one hold their breath slightly.

The trains are long.  You have to determine which car you’re in and then enter the gate for your car number.  The good news is if you get this right, you don’t have to walk so far.  I probably don’t need to mention the bad news!  Then it’s correct car and seat number!  I will have to say the seats are more comfortable than the airplane.  There’s more room! 

I do feel pretty confident in my ability to travel in China, but that doesn’t mean I am lackadaisical about it!  Sandra and I were sitting at our gate in the Nanjing airport waiting to board our flight to Chongqing.  I’d been trying to listen to the announcements about gate changes and delays as carefully as I could, but the accents are hard to understand.  About 30 minutes before our flight was due to take off, I realized nothing was happening at the gate, even though it still read it was the correct gate.  We looked at a monitor nearby and discovered the gate change.  We hustled from gate 46 to gate 25 as fast as could!  No worries J  Plenty of time!  Yikes!

I’m still amazed when I see Chinese people traveling with items in a plastic grocery type bag as their “carryon” luggage.  It’s all tied up, but still … and, they do smoosh into the overhead bins rather well. 

My ability to use the Internet is very strange!  I was able to post earlier in the week on my blog, but not now.  Earlier, I couldn’t get to my university online tools, now I can!  If you’re reading this blog post, it’s because I finally got through (via Safari, but not Firefox)! Quirky, quirky, quirky!