At the Harbin train station I ended up meeting with some college students that were returning to Beijing after taking a trip together. They were gone for several days and between the four of them (two guys and two girls) they had one suitcase and three backpacks. I was impressed. They started talking to me because . . . wait for it . . . I was white and therefore I must know English. If you have not noticed you must realize that me being white causes people to want to talk to me or just stare at me. It can be fun but it can also be really annoying because the only reason people want to interact with you is due to your skin color and the physical features of your face.
Well these college students were really nice and took it upon themselves to make sure I got on the train. They then rearranged where they were sitting and I was sitting so we could sit together and talk. It was the most enjoyable slow train ride I had taken on my trip. The guy who sold things on the slow train (kinda similar to what you would see on late night TV commercials) started to joke with us and asked me if I thought he was handsome, of which I assured him that he was, in Mandarin. I got a kick out of what the college students brought with them on the train. They had packed a bottle of wine, a bottle of baijiu (strong Chinese drink with alcohol content of upwards around 45% and higher), and different types of meat and pigeon eggs. I told them they know how to take the slow train, at which they agreed that they did.
After the 11 hour return trip to Beijing I was invited out to lunch by two of the four college students, the other two wanted to go to sleep. So they took me out to a Korean Hot Pot. See the picture below for the food.
My friend I was meeting up with to head to Datong kindly let me use the shower at her hotel room so I could get the slow train stink off me and after my hot pot meal with my new Chinese friends she and I wondered around Beijing. Our train left at 2 the following morning so we did not book any hotels and just hung out at the train station until it left.
During our wonderings I came upon my first every McDonald's drive through in China. They are just not really a thing here.
We also saw a monkey outside of a foreign language bookstore. I was proud of the fact that I was able to leave the bookstore with only two books!!
This is of our wait in the train station. It was my friends first every experience taking the slow train so it was fun for me. There is quite a difference between the two train experiences. I actually enjoy the slow train but it is certainly not an experience for everyone. After this trip to Datong my friend decided that she would be taking the fast train from then on.
We arrived in Datong and found our hostel. It was her first hostel experience as well and the hostel in Datong was a really great one. There were quite a few foreigners as well. We ended up making friends with a woman from France and one from the Netherlands, there was also a French chef who came to learn to cook Chinese food.
What you are viewing below is the best food I have eaten in China. Please give it the respectful glance it deserves as its statue as my favorite dish. This is something that I dream about eating again. It is just too bad that it exists at least an entire days journey from Changzhou.
After a day of relaxing I headed to the Datong Grottoes with my friend and my new French friend. At the Grottoes there was a temple and then grottoes themselves.
The entrance.
The next few pictures are of the temple.
The next pictures are of the grottoes.
My two friends.
The next four pictures are of the inside of the building in the picture above.
The following day we headed to the city wall and walked along it for a good ways. It was very similar to the wall in Xi'an but this one had cartoon like statues made out of something like silk.
It also has a plaster of a giant fat man hanging from the wall.
Looking out from the wall. There was construction being done on buildings inside the wall.
The other place we went was the dragon wall, which was really old. It contained the nine dragons talked about in Chinese History. I do not understand their means or their role in history but the wall was gorgeous.
We went back to the noodle place for dinner since it was so amazing. The little boy in the green shirt kept staring at us while we were eating. He was really cute.
We took the train back to Beijing the next day. I bought a lunch box on the train and this is what it looked like. It was pretty good.
Wow! You are seeing some really cool things! Thanks so much for sharing!
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