Day 378: Vee-Eye-Pee Yo!

Urumqi – Beijing, China

It would have been quite a pain, even impossible, securing the train ticket back to Beijing, had it not been a hook up by Xiaoyun’s husband, Baoming.

Knowing people sure means something here. Our car was allowed to drive in a VIP parking lot with direct entrance to the VIP lounge. The lounge itself has direct entrance to the train platform.

With tea being served to us in the lounge, it was a different experience from my last one were customers were being yelled at by the train and station attendants. “Customers are always right,” does not apply here in China. There had been way too many occasion where I witnessed store attendants , restaurant servers, hotel cleaners  fought with the customers. I myself had experienced being looked at and talked to disdainfully. It’s a very different “service” philosophy compared to the Japanese’s.

Xiaoyun’s family sent me off to the train today not without giving me a huge plastic bag full on food enough for half a week. These were to make sure I survive my 34-hour train ride. No amount of my refusal could talk them into letting me bring any less food.

Loaded with my end of the world food supply, I embarked on the train at 10AM and was instantly knocked out for 5 hours straight. After 2 hours of being awake, it was back to sleep again for another 3 hours. All the sleep during the day did not stop me from sleeping at night as feared. I guess I badly needed the rest.