(From our trip in April 2018)

This morning we were to go to the Xian train station and board our fast train to Beijing.  I had bought our tickets online but there was no “print at home” option unfortunately so the tickets had to be collected from a specific counter at the train station.  The intructions were a little confusing and I was a little concerned about how this process would go given our limited Chinese.  I mentioned this to our tour guide Bryan Bai  yesterday who we had booked our private driver with.  Bryan organised for the driver to arrive early so that he could park at the station and come in and help us collect the tickets.  When we walked into the station all I could see was chaos.  The ticketing counters were packed with what can only be described as organised mayhem.  It was impossible to know which line to go into for pre purchased tickets since there didn’t appear to be any sort of “lining up, waiting your turn” type system.  For a rule follower like me this was an anxiety producing scene.  Thank goodness for the driver – he just pushed and shoved his way to the front of a counter with a “just hand me the tickets and noone get’s hurt” attitude!  Forget Superman, Batman and Thor….this guy was my super hero.  Without his help we literally would not have been able to collect the tickets so I’m super duper grateful.