A long time ago, I posted a picture of what a soft sleeper train car looked like in China, but the picture was a little distorted and it was hard to gauge its actually size.  The video Phil took helps, but not by much.  I highly recommend forking up the money for one if you are traveling more than eight hours.  Even though I had a hard time going to sleep, it was nice to have a place to lay my head and be able to stretch out.

I was terrified that somehow the crazy snow storm that attacked Shenyang was going to freeze us on the tracks in the middle of no where and that we would ultimately starve to death because we didn’t have but a few snacks with us.  Thankfully, that never happened, because if it did, well, you wouldn’t be reading this right now.  🙂

If you have plenty of time or you want to save money, trains are the way to go in China.  However, you can’t really plan ahead too much when it comes to buying tickets because they only sell them one or two weeks in advance.  I can’t remember how early you can buy them, but it is something like that.   If you wait too long, depending on the time of year, you may not be able to buy tickets and you’ll have to figure out another way to get where you want to go.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR_E-HZhIxM[/youtube]

I don’t know how I ever forgot to post this particular video.  I mean, it isn’t a ground breaking video or anything, but it did make me laugh when I watched it for the first time in a long time.   As I mentioned in my last post, this was our third attempt trying to get to Shenyang. What was supposed to be an easy hour and a half flight, turned into 14 hours of hell.  It would have been one thing if we had waited in the lobby for 14 hours, but most of our time was spent on the tarmac, cramped in a small plane, filled to the brim with passangers.  I suppose the craziest thing was that we actually took off for Shenyang at one point, got half way there, and when they found out there was no room for the plane to land, we were forced to go back to Beijing.  It was at that point we decided to give up and go home and figure out another way to Shenyang,  but before we could go home, we first had to get our luggage back.  That was another nightmare all together.  Below is the video Phil took as we waited for Richard’s(Yuli Guo) luggage to be found.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EA0-VNpEBs[/youtube]

Flipping through my Chinese videos, I found a few that I had never shared before and decided to upload them for your viewing pleasure.  The first video is of the freak snow storm that hit us when we were in Beijing waiting to go to Shenyang.  You can read all about that special story here, here, and here if you have no idea what I am talking about.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFZg-JinN5Y[/youtube]

This morning I was treated to a wonderful breakfast that consisted of three scrambled eggs and a dozen mini corn bread muffins, compliments of Chef Phil.  It may be a strange combination to some, but I must say, it was mighty tasty.  I thought about putting some syrup on the corn bread muffins, as my dad has suggested before, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.  I stuck with the old fashion butter. On the pack of the Jiffy box, though, I did notice that the mix could be used to make corn pancakes, so I imagine my dad isn’t the only one who likes some syrup on his corn bread.  Maybe one of these days I’ll try it.  Heck, maybe I’ll even like it.  🙂  Oh, and for those of you who don’t know.  Jiffy makes the best corn bread ever!

Every now and again, I type random words into You Tube’s search engine hoping to come across an interesting video.  I stumbled across this one not too long ago, and thought I would share it.  The little girl is just too precious.

The video was filmed in the most beautiful part of China that I visited – Yangshuo.  It’s one of those places that you have to see to truly appreciate.  No picture or video do the landscape justice.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqiXw7nqw6k[/youtube]

I thought of a hundred different ways to make an eloquent and interesting post about what I could actually do with a B.A. in English, but I’m pretty sure the following video sums it up rather well.

The only thing I really have to say is this: My adviser failed me.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH6PTamLIlE[/youtube]