38 hours on a train-woot woot

• I decided that in order to truly see China, I wanted to take the train so that I didn't miss out on any landscapes
• I won't lie, something about looking at rice paddies from a train is absolutely captivating to me (and it's not because I have an Asian thing-because I don't)
• My computer is officially broke
• This is fitting seeing that the warranty expired as soon as I graduated from Vanderbilt (2.5 weeks ago)
• Basically, one of the hinges is broken so I can’t close my computer all the way
• I can definitely live with it, but it’s just the fact that the computer hinge waited to fail after  the warranty expired that irks me
• Plus I deserve this
• My blog has basically been blasting China since I’ve started this blog and last night I accidentally ditched a new-found friend when I didn’t hear my phone ring to hear that I got her message
• •For a second there I forgot I was white (in a different than everyone else sort of sense)
• At the Baihe train station there were only about 50 people there and no one gawked at me like usual
• But after 30 minutes on the train I wanted to re-fill my hot water bottle and so when I got up this little Chinese boy looked right at me and gasped
• That’s when it clicked, “Oh yeah, I’m still white”
• Apparently there’s no baggage limit for Chinese trains
• This one guy brought on 3 shovels, 2 tool sets, and 2 big rice bags full of equipment so if I ever need to move anywhere in China that will be a big-time move, I’m taking the train
• It’s not like they’d check the bags for weapons anyways
• When I got to the Baihe train station early in the morning the security line was open but there was no security guard there so basically I could have been packing some serious heat and I could have walked right through
• The post remained unmanned for a good 5 minutes before the security guard came out of the bathroom just taking her sweet time to get over to the security guard shack
• When I was transferring trains in Shenyan everyone that wanted to transfer had to go through “security” again and all of us were in a hurry so 3 of us managed to get through the security arch at the same time and the beeper went off
• The security guard broke from his conversation with the other 3 guards to sort of half-way wand my pockets (and not the other two) and no beeper went off so I was good to go 
• I’m cheating a little bit on the whole immersion thing
• So today I decided that because I had 12 hours to spare on the train from Baihe to Shenyang I would listen to every one of my top-rated songs on my ipod
• I didn’t cheat all the way though, about 60% of the way through I just happened to be passing this Chinese guy and his friend and he wanted to exchange music devices with me
• So I listened to his Chinese music and he listened to my American music, but the problem was that all of my music was rock/rap where all his was feminine
• I think I have about 3 girl singers on my ipod and I tried to show him Paramore but that wasn’t quite to his liking
• He listened to maybe a song and a half and he said in Chinese the equivalent of “OK” and put my ipod down
• It was weird though because listening to Metallica actually improved my Chinese listening skills
• After listening to “Blackened” and “And Justice For All…” I was actually able to clearly understand that my new Chinese friend was asking what my nationality was and how much money I make
• It was all good and well because he ended up buying me a 5 RMB dinner of Beef Noodles that you add hot water to
• Plus I like how Chinese people litter without a care in the world
• When we were done with our meal, I dumped my refuse in a trash bin but the two guys I was with just literally threw it out of the window like it was no big deal at all
• If I get addicted to smoking it’s not my fault
• Due to the really long train ride to Hohhot and my nature to always be doing something, I stood up for probably 50% of the trip in this one area of the train that unfortunately happened to be the same area as the smoking room
• A lot of Chinese people smoke, so it’s very likely that I could develop a nicotine addiction based solely on the fact that I decided to stand up for long periods at a time in a train
• As long as people think I’m not trying to bum free cigarettes off of people then I think I’ll be fine
• New goal for my English students when I start to teach
• I want my students to be so good at English that they make a rap titled, “I got 99 problems but English ain’t one”
• I also realized that not once have I been carded for alcohol
• Funny how Chinese people drink it like it’s water (in fact it costs about the same as a soft drink here)
• Got into Hohhot just fine
• Anda Guesthouse is by far the nicest hostel I've been able to stay in (I've only been to 3 but still)
• 24 hour hot water is definitely what vaults it to the top