From Beijing to Xi'an

After leaving the wilderness of Mongolia, we trained across desert, steppe and more desert into Northern China. The landscape up there is vast, empty and flat - a far cry from the mountainous terrain we saw in Mongolia. The alien landscape was offset by us sharing a sleeper booth with a Chinese couple. We were worried about pickpockets on the train, as we were warned at every turn in Mongolia to watch out for them. However, as soon as we heard our train-mates speaking Chinese, we started up a broken conversation, and all was well:) We felt as though we were coming home. As we approached Beijing at dawn, the Great Wall peered down upon us from mountain tops, the traffic increased, the other bus sleepers' cellphones starting ringing and the next stage of our journey began!

The desert landscape of Southern Mongolia and Northern China.

After checking into our hostel in Beijing, we relaxed for the day, ate some great Chinese food and then met Mom and Dad Styles, who had just come from their year in South Korea - a unique meeting!! Since then, we've been slowly working our way West, and are now in Xi'an, the beginning of the Silk Road and our home for 6 months in 2004 when we worked here teaching English - another one of our homes away from home!

One ever-present reality of China - masses and masses of people.

Our first stop, Beijing, was unbelievable. New roads, old ones completely gone, construction and renovations everywhere - this is a city in the midst of major facial reconstruction. It now has a lovely, relaxed almost regal feel, with broad boulevards, flowers and trees everywhere, no horn honking and lights lining streets at night. With the Olympics only a year away, the push is on to make Beijing a world-class city. From our own perspective - it's working. We even enjoyed blue sky and clear air for the 4 days we were in the city - amazing! The Great Wall 10km hike was fantastic to see again, and MnD were blown away by it. Unreal what 750,000 slaves will do when put to work eh? After great feeds and some major dumpling feasts, we then headed off to see our Chinese friend's (Li Jin, or English name Armstrong) parents in his home town of Zhoukou, in Henan province. This province, usually off the tourist map, holds 100 million people, 3 times the population of Canada!!

Seeing the Great Wall again was wonderful - and to see it with my parents was even more special.

Once again we met with wonderful Chinese hospitality, with literally unending feasts of local dishes (every Chinese city or town worth their salt has a famous dish) and lots of time to have discussions on everything Chinese. It was heart-warming for Emily and I to see MnD meet Armstrong's parents - what different lives they have led! His parents are two people who were sent to the fields during Mao's Cultural Revolution, and now he is in his last year of work and she is already retired. They lead a happy, simple life, and were more than happy to open their arms and hearts to us once again. We also played a bunch of mah-jong, which was great! From here it was off to the provincial capital Zhengzhou to check out Armstrong's new university and see his friends for what else -more eating!

Armstrong's parents and family friend, in their home in Zhoukou - absolutely wonderful people:)

Chinese students live through competition us North Americans can only dream of (well, actually, nightmare of). To enter his Master's degree program, Armstrong had to take a lengthy test which another 1,000 people took. Only 67 were taken from this massive list, and he was one of them! He's now in Zhengzhou National University, getting a Master's in Translation. This university is ranked 37th in China, which, being naive Canadians, we thought wasn't that great. However, seeing that there are over 1,000 universities (!!) in the country, 37th all of a sudden looks really really great. His friends all speak great English, and they treated us to meal upon meal - more Chinese hospitality! One more major number fact for you - Zhengzhou train station, being situated in between all the major cities in China, is therefore an important transport hub. Being important leads to over 1,000,000 people passing through that station, EVERY DAY. Trying to comprehend how many people in this country is like trying to count stars at night - just a waste of mental effort!

Armstrong's new home - Foreign Language Center, where he'll be doing his Master's in Translation.

We've now been in Xi'an for a few days and have gone to see our old school and friends, and, of course, eaten more great food. Tomorrow we're shopping with Hellen and Justin, whose wedding we went to a year and a half ago. The day after MnD take in the Terracotta Warriors and Friday we head out on a 22hour train ride following the Silk Road through Gansu province and into Dunhuang, a major Silk Road hub for centuries to see cave art and 1700m-high sand dunes meet oases! Should be great - from there it's through the Taklamakan desert and into Tibet via Golmud, for those keeping track on maps at home. Hope everyone is well, and take care!!