The soft sleeper was exactly what it sounded like - a soft sleep. We slept through the night until our alarm clock went off at 5:30 am. Soon after, the train arrived in Xi'an. As we stepped out of the station, we scanned through the crowd of cab drivers and hotel hawkers, all vying for our business. Suddenly, we saw someone holding a sign for the International Youth Hostel. It wasn't the one we had pre-booked, but it was right next door to ours, and they were kin...

We got to Beijing at 8:00 pm and were immediately shocked, to say the least, with the unbelievably beautiful, pristine airport that greeted us. Margaret wanted to take a picture of the bathroom, as it was so lovely. Our pre-arranged driver from the hostel was there, despite our delay, which also made us very happy, and he drove us to the hotel following the speed limit, stopping for stoplights, signalling, even wearing his seatbelt. We thought we'd died and gone ...