Night Train from Beijing to Shanghai

During our 2010 trip to China Lindsay and I were able to continue one of our most favorite travel traditions…the night train! Little did we know that the “bullet night train” from Beijing to Shanghai would blow us away! The journey started in the incredibly modern and beautiful Beijing South Train Station. This brand new station looks like a gaint glass seashell and is full of palm trees, shops, etc. The station has numerous levels and you wait on the upper level and then take fancy escelators down to the trains when you are called to board. As we made our way down the escalator we were delighted when we saw our train. It was a shiny white bullet train with an incredible interior. After switching rooms a few times (to help a family so that they could all be together) we finally settled in. Their were 4 beds to a room and they were incredibly comfortable. Each bed had very high quality linin, reading lights and a remote control television. Keep in mind that Lindsay and I have taken some ghetto night trains in our life so we were loving this. We were sharing the room with a few other Chinese teenagers and luckily they spent most of the night in the hallway talking so we had the room to ourselves. Although the train goes incredibly fast it is unbelievably smooth. We watched tv until we feel asleep and when we woke up we were in the futuristic city of Shanghai! :) My only complaints about this incredible journey is that we could not see the Chinese countryside (it was night) and at one point we woke up and the AC had gone out and it felt like an oven! :) All in all it was the most futuristic and comfortable night train we have ever taken.