On the second full day of the trip, my wife and her coworkers were back at work and had a team dinner that night. So the three of us guys who were tagging along on the trip decided to take the bullet train from Beijing to Shanghai and explore another city in China. My travel companions were David and Dakota.
I literally met these two guys for the first time the day before, so I didn’t quite know what to expect. As it turned out, our trip to Shanghai was probably the highlight of the entire China trip. It was exciting to travel with people I didn’t know and as it turned out, we got along great. We’re all pretty laid back and we really bonded during our 24 hour trip to Shanghai and back.
Buying Tickets
We bought round trip second class tickets for the bullet train before we left for China. Second class is the most common and cheapest ticket class for high-speed trains. It’s a good choice if you are planning a low budget China tour.
David purchased the tickets for the two of us through https://www.chinahighlights.com/china-trains. They have a really helpful website, with information on everything you’ll need to know to travel successfully through China by train. The site has information on train schedules, how to buy tickets, how to read your ticket, and lots of general train travel tips.
The best part of buying through chinahighlights.com is that they email you an article about how to collect your tickets after purchasing them online. We chose to pick them up at the train station. The article tells you how far in advance to show up and where to collect the tickets. The most helpful part of the article is that it gives you the phrases you’ll need to say to collect your tickets in both Mandarin and English. Below is an example you can show the ticket agent if he/she doesn’t speak English:
Chinese: 请问在网上定的票要去哪个窗口排队取票？
English: I booked my ticket online; could you tell me which window I should queue at to collect my ticket?
Here are a few things to remember when traveling by train in China:
- Make sure you’re at the right train station – most cities have several train stations so check beforehand
- Allow enough time to get to the station – traffic is often bad, so better to get there early than late
- Bring your passport – you must show it to collect your tickets
Beijing South Station
We read that you should get to the station two hours beforehand in case of long queues for collecting tickets, security checks and check-in procedures. We also had heard horror stories of masses of people pushing and shoving while boarding trains, so we didn’t know what to expect.
Our train left at 7 a.m. from the Beijing South train station. Since our train was leaving so early in the morning, we didn’t think we need to get there two full hours beforehand. When we arrived at 5:30 a.m., there was no line at the security check and the lines for collecting tickets was not bad at all. After showing our passports and pointing to the phrases on the confirmation email, we collected our tickets in about 15 minutes.
After checking the departure gate on the ticket and comparing to the large train information display, we headed to our gate. After finding our gate, we decided to walk around and see what food we could find for breakfast.
Dining Options
The station has KFC and Burger King as well as many Chinese restaurants. Apparently KFC is the largest American fast food chain in China and it seemed very popular. For breakfast, patrons were eating mostly Chinese items like dumplings and soups, not fried chicken.
We decided to get a smaller meal from a little mini-mart type place. All three of us ordered a spicy pork bun and the Chinese equivalent of an Arnold Palmer.
Boarding the Bullet Train
About 45 minutes before departure we noticed people starting to queue up by the gate. Each gate actually has two entrances on opposite sides of each other. By the time we decided to get in line with everyone else, the people at the end of the lines for each entrance were touching back to back.
Once the gates opened and people started moving, we choose to walk towards the entrance we thought would go faster. The boarding process wasn’t as chaotic as I thought it might be, but there is definitely a cultural difference in China about personal space. We witnessed several people pushing and cutting in line and they always seemed totally unaware that they were doing this.
After going though another security check, we got out to the train platform. We took a few pictures by the front of the train and then found our car and seats.
Riding the Bullet Train
The train was very clean and each row had 2 seats on one side and 3 on the other. David and I were in the first row on the side with 2 seats, while Dakota was in a different car. I was impressed with the amount of leg room and how far the seats could recline. The train had free WiFi but we couldn’t get it to work.
Types of Trains
High-speed trains in China are designed for speeds of 200 to 350 km/h (124 to 217 mph). There are three types of China high-speed trains: G, D and C trains. The facilities and appearance of G/D/C trains are similar in that they are all new and modern.
The G trains, which are the fastest, cut more than half the time off the duration of a journey compared to a normal speed train.
For example, our G5 train from Beijing to Shanghai only took 4 hours and 48 minutes, while a D train would take 11 hours and 49 minutes, and a normal-speed train would take more than 15 hours!
Ghost Cities
During the train ride, we noticed several “ghost cities”. According to one of our tour guides, local governments around the country build these to stimulate their economies by building more infrastructure and stimulating the property market. Another said it was the government’s way to urbanize a historically rural nation.
Ghost cities are vast, sprawling, futuristic metropolises built in the middle of nowhere that nobody actually lives in.
What makes them feel so eerie is that nobody lives there. But they’re not abandoned, they’re just new. While most of the world builds cities based on natural need, China is building cities in these rural locations even if there is no logical reason for them to be there.
In the U.S., a city might start small and then grow as the demand for more infrastructure increases. In China, an entire city is built to hold hundreds of thousands of people with all the necessary infrastructure in place before having a single inhabitant.
Shanghai Station
Once we pulled into the Shanghai Station, David and I deboarded the train. After finding Dakota, we were ready to start exploring the city!
All in all, I would highly recommend traveling by train in China. With the world’s most extensive high speed rail network, it’s convenient, comfortable and effective.
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