Checked out of the hotel after breakfast and then went to the Summer Palace, which was pretty nice (some greenery!). [It seems barely an exaggeration to say that there's more grass in our yard than there is in all of Beijing.] Took a boat ride across the artificial lake there, but the pollution was so bad you could hardly see the shore. [Another exaggeration, I suppose, but the view was definitely obscured, and colors weren't as good as they would have been in clear air.]

Afterward, ate at a very nearby buffet and had plenty of time left over before needing to leave for the train. While waiting, Doug had the kids get out their violins and play some. Apparently, this is somewhat dangerous, as permission has to be obtained to play concerts. [I never heard that explicitly stated, but Doug emphasized that this was just *practice*. Also, he had told everyone that if asked at the border why they were bringing in violins, the kids should say "so we can practice every day," instead of "because we're playing in some concerts." The place where they played was a little mini-park next to the restaurant. Nearby was a pavillion with a ping-pong table under it, and, this being China, I was hoping to see some really impressive pinging and ponging. The two guys that played while I was watching weren't any better than I am, though (and that's saying something).]

The train station was an experience; an endless series of gigantic rooms full of people sitting & standing to wait for trains. There were real seats for only a fraction (and none for our group). We got there >1.5 hours before the train's scheduled departure, so the wait wasn't especially pleasant. Tour agency passed out water, banannas, and Subway sandwiches for dinner, but that was at 2PM, so we needed to save them until dinner time. I had some apprehension about carrying all that through the stampede we were told was coming when it was time to board.

All the light fixtures seem to be intended for incandescent, but have compact flourescent bulbs put in them. [That was everywhere, not just at the train station.]

Stampede wasn't as bad as I feared. Inside the train car was a zoo (purely of our own making). We were like sardines. The train started moving at exactly 3:16, as scheduled. The Leonards were along, and told us our stop would only last 4 minutes. [We were in a so-called "hard sleeper" car, and we pretty much had it to ourselves. A hard sleeper has a narrow aisle down one side of the car, and the rest is filled with three-high stacks of bunk beds. There are walls between each group of six bunks, but not between the bunks and the aisle.]

An hour into the trip, we were going past farm fields alternating with areas of walled-in hovels similar to the Hutong "houses". The air pollution was still just as bad as downtown. Saw quite a few gas stations, but very few cars visible on the roads -- mostly small trucks and farm vehicles. Very flat land. [When I say "farm vehicles", I mean motorized carts of various descriptions for hauling stuff around. I don't remember seeing any tractors, combines, or anything like that. There were scattered people out in the fields apparently tending the plants, though.]

Sandwiches survived just fine. There were various snack carts that passed through the car fairly often, with fruit, drinks, sandwiches, ice cream, etc., but we didn't get anything.

The bathroom was a stainless steel urinal bowl set into the floor, with non-skid ridges to each side and a hand-hold bar so you could squat over it without falling over. There was a flushing push-button, and you could not see the tracks when the trap door opened. [Someone had said that you could see the tracks.]

When we got off the train, we were greeted by lights and TV cameras! Photographers were all over the place. When we emerged from the station, we walked out between two rows of little kids (and their parents) who were waving Chinese and American flags and yelling, "Hello and welcome to Xin Xiang!" in unison over and over at the top of their lungs. The parents were all eager to take pictures of their small kids with the small kids in our group (e.g., Maryanne). We were pretty flabbergasted by the whole thing. The kids were from the Leonards' school, and we found out later they had been waiting since 7:30. (We came out of the station at ~9:30.)

[Just before boarding the train, we exchanged our tickets for little metal "dog tags" that indicated which bunk we were supposed to occupy. Of course, we quickly dispensed with assigned places, since we had the whole car. Not long before we reached Xin Xiang, someone from the railroad came through and exchanged all the metal tags for paper tickets (not the original tickets, though). Supposedly, we needed the paper ticket to get out of the train station. However, we came up one ticket short somehow, and we were worrying about how to handle that. As it turned out though, in all the hoopla at the station, no one asked us for the paper tickets, so it wasn't a problem. We never did figure out the purpose of all these ticket exchanges.]