HOGWARTS EXPRESS, KNIGHT BUS, AND CHIA SEEDS

Hogwart’s express, the Knight bus, and chia seeds

Travel days seem to make some of the best stories—weird things we do plus God moments.

Second “big travel day”. I put the quotations in because if you read my other blogs, we traveled quite a few times in Mongolia. Yet, this time it was our second time to another country. 

Let’s just say Harry Potter was a going theme throughout this trip—-might make me think of Harry Potter every time I think of traveling in China. 

HOGWART’S EXPRESS//

  Wands up! After saying goodbye to the squad leaders and Hudson, we took a sleeper train to the border of Mongolia and China. I got Eric to do the Harry Potter train car scene, and was just waiting for Hermione to announce her presence and ask Ron “and you are?” and then fix Harry’s glasses. The Race has taught me to be able to sleep anywhere whenever no matter how hard the surface or comfort level—traits that I did not have in the US though I appreciated the gifting. The beds in Asia are always hard which for some reason this girl can sleep better on hard beds than extra comfy so…I was out on that train sleeping along with the rhythm of the click clunk click clunk of the car wheels. 

BORDER CROSSING//

  We arrived early in the morning with the sunshine. Several people gathered us and our belongings, crammed us into a vehicle, and brought us to a line of cars all parked in rows…apparently this was the line to get to the border. Among the cars were SO many old jeeps. It made me happy to see so many beat up adventure cars. After an hour and a half, we finally started moving. To our curiosity though each of the cars as they took turns out of the gate, were speeding up as fast as possible then braking quite abruptly in front of the officer. Sometimes they would do that several times until the officer thought their brakes worked? We didn’t quite know why they were doing that. Then it was our turn, we passed the brake check and sped down the road….but then we jerked a few times to a stop. The dial on the gas tank was empty-who knows it if read correctly anyways. Our driver poked around in his engine to figure out something. I mumbled prayers under my breathe constantly that we would make it to the border. After a while, we started again and just kept going! We went through a Mongolian security first. Been getting used to taking my pack off, walking through security then putting everything back on. It is quite a project and process as I have my pack, small day pack plus guitar. ALSO, side note, travel days make me want to DUMP EVERYTHING. The first walk to the first train…Hudson asked me what I was thinking, and I honestly told him I was going through everything in my mind of what I could dump reaching the conclusion that I had NO IDEA what to dump!

We hopped back into the car, and headed to the official border place. We lined up, finger print checked, and went through the most peaceful security I have ever gone through. Just put my bags on the conveyor and picked them back up and walked out. There was also a bathroom. Toilets in China are not Mongolia wooden squatty potties. They are porcelain squatty potties. Oh my, all the interesting toilets I could tell you about….I am making a mental note on having a squatty potty some day. 

FIRST GLIMPSE OF CHINA//

  We drove into China which happened to be a city, a very clean city. The streets are swept, everything was tidy and the sun was shining…I wasn’t used to seeing clean cities. We had them bring us to the bus station and after google translating and the usual laughter from the locals, we bought tickets for an overnight sleeper bus. While waiting for our next leg, we walked around the many different hole-in-the-wall stores to find food. I found sweet potato chips and chocolate and peanuts. My mouth is still watering over the sweet potato chips. Peanuts are hard to find just plainly salted. There is a distinct Chinese flavor and they also don’t like salt, so most chip like items are sweet. Quite thankful that I packed my salt. 

KNIGHT BUS//

  The sleeper bus I was imagining was not the sleeper bus we got into. There were three rows of beds, one on each side of the bus and one down the middle and there was a top bunk and a floor level bunk. I had a top bunk on the side with my guitar, my 5L jug of water, day pack, and Jo’s Ukelele. The bed was maybe 5.5ft long and 1.5ft wide. ha. Poor Eric couldn’t stretch out at all being his 6’1” length, and TJ didn’t get much sleep at all. I slept on and off all night but slept best after I put my guitar down on the floor by Aubrey. There was a point in time where we were going so fast and moving side to side that I was just imagining the Harry Potter sleeper bus and that guy’s head swinging side to side at the front window. I was very thankful for a bar to keep me ON my bed. We got into Beijing at 2:00AM and got kicked off the bus at 5:00AM. Just to add to the fun, it was raining cats and dogs outside, actually flash flooding. I pulled out my rain cover to put over my guitar, and also discovered chia seeds on me…interesting. I was praying for a taxi that would hold all of us. We didn’t know where the nearest McDonalds was-wifi to find housing. Then a van appeared and we were able to easily fit every wet thing and every soaked body into it. We made it to the 24hr McDonalds-thank you, Jesus! 

CHIA SEEDS IN MCDONALDS//

And we all discovered chia seeds sporadically all over our packs and rain coats and pants. My bag of chia seeds opened in my pack, came out of my pack and turned into chia pudding in the rain on people’s stuff….side note, I am still finding chia seeds in my stuff.We stayed at McDonalds for about 12hrs trying to find housing which isn’t fun when you can’t eat anything but fries there. I definitely dealt with some hangriness, Eric was kind enough to give me some of his trail mix and protein bar which was a huggeeee blessing. China has strict policies that don’t allow foreigners to stay. Half of the team also went searching for Starbucks, a five hour long excursion, but then found out by us that there was one right around the corner. Oh the joy on their faces when they found out. Housing was found and we loaded up to start traveling again. 

FINAL LEG, NO TAXI OR SKETCHY TAXI//

  We tried to get a taxi, but by God’s grace an Australian man who lived there told us that you can’t get taxis in the evening. He told us to take the subway but we would have to dump all “dangerous” things…knives, aerosols, exc. Glad I didn’t bring my knife after all! 

We took the subway, switching several times and asking directions even more. Thankfully, the Chinese are so helpful. After getting off, we searched for our bus. We found it, climbed awkwardly in with all our packs and sat down, thankful for the rest. We seemed to drive for about an hour, night was coming on. Aubrey kept saying we were getting closer, but then it was the end of the line and we all had to get off. ummm….let’s just say we didn’t know what to do. Two men then showed up and told us that we were on the other end of the city and an hour and a half away from our destination. This bus WAS the one we were supposed to take to get just a five minute walk away from our housing. So, slightly uncomfortably, we climbed in two cars and trusted that God would take care of us at this late hour of the night. I, again the sleeping in strange places, was out in a hard sleep while we drove on. Apparently, God gave me enough peace to sleep through our strange situation. We got to what looked like the countryside in the dark. 

FIRST ARRIVAL//

  The noises of cicadas and the luminous walls on either side of the road invited us. Our hostess met us, grabbed my guitar case (I was holding it like a baby, and she laughed), and she showed us to her house. This is what I thought of China. There was an open area that had doors to each of her rooms-kitchen, living room, dining room. Then she led us up stairs into a deck that had a line of rooms that she rented out. The first two rooms were ours. After unpacking and changing into something comfortable, we slept on our hard beds that were ours for the next four days. I was only slightly curious at the mess of chia seeds I was going to have to clean out in the morning. Oh the memories I will have with my pack..forever. 

Watch for a vlog coming up about this travel day as well as a blog of what I have been learning in China and what all has looked like!

UPDATE on fundraising! Currently only $1689 from being fully funded! Praying that it comes in before the 30th! God has been so faithful, and I am excited to see Him use you to provide the rest of these funds!