Nov 21 2013: Beginning Our Way to Beihai

Thursday!

We spent the morning running around doing some laundry and packing and making sure we had everything for our weekend trip, and so on. We packed a few snacks, we repacked, did some more laundry, and finally headed out the door!

At the school, we grabbed lunch and then headed back down the street to grab a few more snacks for our train ride, before returning and trying to concentrate on the next piece at hand: teaching! So we began planning our lessons for the day as well as preparing Abby and Greg for teaching our later classes! Abby wanted to try teaching the little kids and so Greg would teach mine.

It was super nice of them, and they agreed to teach our last Thursday class and our single class on Friday.

We got invited to play with some of my kids for the next week, and then I didn’t even end up teaching my Grade 4 class! I sat around and waited for Katie to finish teaching and then we would head out! Our train was to leave at 6 and we finished a little after 4:30 and headed onto the street. What we should have done was order a cab ride but we didn’t so we ran around waiting for one but finally got on the bus to a more crowded street and got a taxi that way.

We got to the station after 5, making us panic a little and promising never to be so foolish with time again. Unfortunately we found that Nicole, our Chinese friend who was coming with us, was still stuck in line! So I held over her spot as she and Katie raced around trying to talk to the people to get our tickets in time!

And five minutes before 6, we finally had the tickets- to find that our train was delayed. So it was kind of a good thing. We went through, sat down on a bench for a while. It was so cold! We bought hot drinks and sat around, and were still bored. They finally put up the notice that we wouldn’t board until 10:25, ridiculous! So we left the station, used a bathroom down the street, and crossed over to the mall nearby. It was warmer in there, so we stayed there for about an hour before finally returning to the station and chilling there, until we finally boarded!

It was about eleven or so by the time we were heading out on that train. We ate a few snacks in the dark by our bunks, and finally went to bed! We were tired, and praying hard that we would catch our next train after that.

For me, it’s still tricky sleeping on trains. I’m always on the top bunk, too, with Katie in the middle. Kind of funny… but yeah. It was still nice not to be panicking right then!