Day 5 – Bullet Train to Beijing and a Night at the Opera

Bullet Train to Beijing

Today was our day to travel to Beijing and we booked a 10 am train from Hangqiao Station. Because this is a holiday week, the train is sold out and we weren’t too sure how much time we had to allow to pass through security so we left by taxi at 7:30 am. We were seated inside the terminal by 8:15 am so maybe we overdid it a bit. There are no options if we missed that train so it was better to be safe. We had to pass through security twice to catch our train. The first time they made us take out all our spray bottles (5 in total) and the second time they confiscated a small pair of scissors I was carrying. No real rhyme or reason about the hair spray.

Traveling in Comfort

The train was really amazing. We had bought first class tickets to get a little more room for our luggage and we were very comfortable. The tickets weren’t much more than second class so no big deal. Travel in China is, for the most part, a fraction of the cost for the same trip in the US. Our train speed was just a little over 220 mph but you really don’t even feel the motion.  It was a 4 hour and 28 minute trip with two stops along the way. The train today had about 20 coaches with a dining car (Coach 9) and we were in Coach 2 near the end of the train. I took a walk to see what the dining car was like but it was only take out. No tables to sit and eat. Apparently you could order by text or app as I saw some people get their meals delivered. By the way, bullet trains run exactly on time here. The photo is the last car, business class and we were in the one right in front of it.

Demonstration of Make-up Application

As far as the view, there was nothing spectacular. We passed through several smoggy cities and even the country had a continual haze so it wasn’t too appealing. The countryside was mostly flat and in the countryside many of the fields had been plowed under but there were still a few crops like late corn and maybe sugar cane.

We arrived in Beijing exactly on time, passed through security again on the way out and took a cab to our hotel with no problems. We were fortunate that our hotel is just on the outside of the 2nd Ring Road. Everything inside from here is shut down for the celebration tomorrow. Also lucky that the Peking Opera that we went to is also outside the 2nd ring. There were already starting to shut down the city and they picked us up two hours early to make sure we made it.

Fight for the Mountain Herb

The opera was good but you would not recognize it as a Western opera because it was mostly acrobatics and martial arts. There were two separate acts. The first was called “Blocking the Horse” and the second “The Great Immortal Herb Robbery.” There was singing in the first which you might call shrill but really sounded a bit like if Minnie Mouse sang opera. The story line was a woman from the Song Dynasty who dressed like a man who traveled to the north to spy and ran into a fellow countryman. The second was about a woman whose husband was sick and she had to go to get the “immortal flower” in the mountains to cure him. Along the way she has to fight goat boys and deer boys but I’m happy to say she won and got the herb. The fighting scenes were amazing, consisting of sticks which were alternately thrown and kicked by the girl. I have no idea how they were able to do it with such precision.