Next stop was the train station for our 5 1/2 hour bullet train ride to Xi'an but first we were heading for lunch at a nearby shopping centre. I absolutely love this mini fleet of road sweepers with their besoms waving proudly as they drive along.
As we were driving past I managed a quick snap of the rather impressive Beijing West railway station.
Our group heading up the escalator to the food hall. I may have already said that there are limited places to take Western visitors to, both because of the food offered and also the numbers involved (we're quite a small group at 21). So the local guides in each city scout out suitable places and we trust them to be clean and hygienic, even if Western styles loos aren't usually available.
Hopefully this is a joke and not the local speciality!
We passed this stall selling some kind of pasty - maybe pig filled?
This was like a sushi bar where the food whizzes around on a conveyor belt. There was no one eating yet (only 11:30) so I could take a few shots.
Absolutely no idea what was on offer but it looked very colourful.
I wasn't very hungry and there wasn't much produced that I'd eat so I left the group and went for a wander around the shopping centre. I certainly wouldn't risk eating these chicken pieces after they've been sitting around in the open.
We then arrived at the rather impressive station, it's more like an airport.
Travel is extremely well organised, tickets are purchased in advance and seats allocated. You then sit in the waiting room until you're allowed to go through the boarding gate and onto the train - this is about 1/2 hour before departure if it's a terminus or 10 mins before the train arrives on a through train. As with everything here, the queues are awful but fortunately the scanners don't work for Passport ID so we can queue jump and go through the manual gate.
I suppose with a population of 1.4 billion I shouldn't be surprised by how many high rise apartments there are everywhere and all looking relatively newly built.
A trolley snack service was provided and there was also a buffet car. We were in a designated "quiet carriage" which one or two of our group never quite grasped and consequently got told off on several occasions for speaking to one another.
The journey took around 5 1/2 hours and was very comfortable and smooth. We didn't arrive in Xi'an until about 18:30 so by the time we'd walked to the coach (a very, long way) and got to the hotel it was already quite late