We got back to Urumqi to donate a bunch of our field equipment and attend a closing banquet with the Chinese Academy of Science and Xinjiang Normal University. These banquets are really making me question whether I want to continue to do work in China. Then we took all our luggage and Kim's samples on ice onto the Xinjiang Express! It's a 45 hour train that goes across pretty much all of China. We had soft sleepers which includes 4 beds to one room with a door. The hard sleepers in the car over had 6 beds to a division without doors. There was a dining car 1 car over and the food was overpriced, as expected. A nice surprise was that one of our cabinmates is a jewelry designer and shared tea and pictures with us. He was really nice and considerate and helped us get our baggage up and down the tall storage areas. It's a good thing Chris took me rock climbing for my birthday or I wouldn't be able to get to my bed so easily! There was no electricity or Internet or even cell service on the train so Kim and I each read 2 novels during the trip. In the dining car we noticed that the group of Kazakh men sitting near us was staring and taking pictures so we took some pictures back and offered to pose with them. Each one of them sat for a portrait with Kim! I don't look too different from them ha ha ha
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