Riding the train to Xi'an

This weekend my group and I took a trip to Xi'an the ancient capital of China. It was the capital of China around 2000 years ago. It is about 450 miles from Chengdu roughly. Since this trip was not covered in our USAC tuition we wanted to save a little money so we decided we would take the train to Xi'an. It is a 17 hour train ride and it costs about 150 Yuan(20) which is a pretty good deal. It turns out the rail system in China is great and alot of people use the train to travel around the country because they do not own their own cars and flying is too expensive most of the time. The train was a lot of fun but it is something that i do not think I will make a habit of taking. We got what was called a hard sleeper and it earned every bit of its name. On one side of the rail car there were walls dividing areas where their were kind bunk beds set up 3 high against the wall. So six people would be in one area stacked on 3 beds and their was a little walk way for people to walk through the cart. I was say there where around 60 beds to a car. They had bathrooms at either end of the car that you could use at your own risk. The also had a dining car that was kind of expensive but not too bad. I think I am going to need to star another post. Check train ride continued.