The train itself was quite charming. The kids and us were in a cabin together wide enough for two narrow bunk beds and space in between to simply walk into the room but nothing more. Walk in and sit on a bunk. No space to do anything else. There was a small half table under the window with bottled water. The bunks each had a pillow and comforter and headphones and a TV and a small reading light in the wall. We were all tired (except Sullivan who claims to never be tired) so we played a card game and then retired for the night. Music is piped into the rooms and you can't turn it off, change the station, or adjust the volume. The lights on the train are turned out at 11 p.m. and the music goes away. We all debated setting alarms and decided not because we knew we would hear other people getting up. It didn't matter. At 7 .m. the lights came back on and music began playing again. I am not sure why, on a train with no space to move, we needed 1.5 hours to wake up and get ready to disembark, but that is train riding Chinese style, I guess. Just after the music starts the porter comes by offering cups of tea or coffe for essentially $1.50 each. We took her up on the tea. It tasted refreshing after the long night. One of the other women in our group lives in Beijing. She baked fresh bread and gave each cabin one. We broke it open and thoroughly enjoyed the zucchini bread we found inside.
Once the train arrived in the station we walked to a charted bus to drop all our luggage. Breakfast was at McDonalds. That was fun and the kids really enjoyed it. Barb didn't eat much at the dumpling place so she was pretty hungry. We fed 3 adults and Barb full breakfast meals for about $8...gotta love those prices...and we were informed that McDonalds is considered an expensive place to eat. Had our second experience with squatty potties...at least there was an abundance of toilet paper. (let me give you one of the most important tips if you ever come to China...stock up and bring lots of toilet paper!!! There is almost never any. Even at the hotel we were provided enough for the first potty upon arrival and then had none all night. Good thing I packed some.)
From McDonalds it was back to the bus for our drive to Pingliang. Heather told us the drive would be about 5 hours. Well, she must have never had this driver...he made it in less than 4 hours. Shaun sat in his seat at one point leaning into the aisle and watching out the front window. When he finally sat upright again, he leaned over and said "if you sit and watch that it is the scariest thing the way that man drives". Shaun wrote to his mom and told her "the bus ride was wild, the driver was passing people left and right and blowing his horn for people with animals to get out of the way. He played "chicken" with vehicles from tiny cars to semi-trucks." When we arrived in Pingliang, we were talking to another staff member who agreed that driving in China is the craziest thing. She said there are hardly ever any accidents, people don't take being honked at personally, nobody gets stressed out by the weaving and speed, etc. This is just the way it is and everyone rolls with it.
The ride went by quickly as Sullivan and Zach played the quitar, Barb chatted and read, I read and napped, we all watched scenery go by. This area is very dry. I don't know how anything grows and everything is covered with a layer of brown dirt/dust. We passed small villages that had homes dug into mountain side caves as well as houses along the roads. The strangest thing we encountered were dozens and dozens of overpass bridges that literally went nowhere. The road we were one was a brand new interstate road. For the most part it was a smooth and easy drive. So when the road was built they also built these overpasses...but connected them to NOTHING. Just an overpass with a 1-2 story drop off on each side. It was just weird. We were told this was in anticipation of future progress but some of these were little places and some were so close together that it made no sense. Even in Eagle River, we only have three overpasses and we are a pretty progressive and busy little place.
We settled into our hotels and had a couple hours to ourselves before meeting again for dinner. We walked a few blocks to a restaurant. We had a private room and sat around 2 large round tables with giant lazy susans in the middle. Then the dishes began...they order at least one for every person at the table and set them all on the lazy susan. We spun the tray to try all the dishes. It was a wonderful experience!!!! The food was so great...some spicy some not...but a huge variety. The evening was capped off with a surprise for Zach and Shaun...a birthday cake! Zach had his birthday (or rather skipped all but 4 hours of it because we "lost" his birthday ont he flight over) on Thursday and Shaun had his on Friday. The cake was delicious but the best part was the candle. It was the huge pick plastic thing with a candle in the middle. We sang happy birthday and then the candle set off a sparkler which then turned out to ignite a bigger flame and the plastic fell to the sides revealing a ring of smaller candles on the ends that then spun because of the heat it generated and music began playing. It was the coolest thing we had ever seen on a cake.
Now we are back in our rooms getting settled and ready for tomorrow. We are booked every day from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. so there won't be time to write much. There are 18 people total in our group of volunteers to work with 45 students. Our contingency from Alaska has supplied 3 of the 4 men and all of the teenagers. We are also almost 1/3rd of the whole group. Makes us feel like we are already making a contribution.
So that is us for now. Oh, thanks for all the prayers about my arm. It is doing much better today. I have been diligent about asking for help. One of the people on the team found a sling for me to use. And I am feeling so much more confident that I will survive well on this trip. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Heading to check on the kids and go to bed...night all.
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