The Road to Russia pt1

---

So I got on the train no problem, everything was smooth in Beijing. The ride out to Harbin was quiet, a nice sleeper car, so caught up on rest, a little reading and a little looking at the countryside. I was going to be purchasing a ticket to Suifenhe once I arrived and then deciding in Suifenhe whether I would take the bus or train into Russia. I arrived in Harbin very early, so early that I was wondering why the agent that was in Harbin would not sell me a ticket to Vlad, there was no problem with time to connect. As soon as I entered the train station in Harbin, I knew I was in trouble. In Beijing, where there was my alphabet to use for chinese words, only their characters existed here. Dead. So, with a nice lost look on my face, I started to try and solve my dilemma, still thinking I may be able to purchase a ticket to Vlad. Some taxi drivers came to help, but english is not a good language up hear to have, chinese would be much better. Finally, one of them grabbed a police officer. He could not speak much english, but decided it was his duty to help me find my way. And so we went, all over the station, looking for someone to interpret for us. Finally we found a waiting area and a woman that could speak some english. He grabbed her and made me her charge, basically ordering her to leave her work, which of course made her popular with her co-workers. Away we went back and forth in the train station, they could not understand what I wished to do, and I could not tell them. I tried showing a map, but it was in english, so this did not help. I found a number of a local woman that was supposed to book the ticket to Vlad for me, she was going to help me find a hotel in Harbin if I needed it. We called her, and she managed to explain where I wished to go. So, we went back into the station, and boom, I had my ticket to Suifenhe. I was not sure when I would get into Russia, but I was one step closer.
On the train, it was going to be 9 hours of a seat, no sleeper here. I was surrounded by three other people, I had the window. I smiled, then got my book out to read. As soon as I did this, I made them curious. He is reading english. Soon, I had my phrasebook out and we were trying to chat. This went on for a few hours then, as people left the train, we finally fell asleep, a bit here, and a bit there. It was funny to here jianada echoing through the train car. Seat to seat, jianada, jianada.

---