How to get a train ticket in Beijing

My friend Amanda and I wanted to find some time to see each other while we both are in China. She lives in a smaller city about two hours outside of Shanghai. Originally, I was going to spend the weekend in her city but after checking plane ticket prices and train schedules, it just wasn't possible. Our next plan was to go to Shanghai and meet there. Great! There are tons of trains that go from Beijing to Shanghai. I could leave Thursday night and be there in the morning. Buying a ticket shouldn't be a problem at all...

The next morning after tutoring, my student's dad took me to a train ticket booth near their home. No overnight tickets to Shanghai left. Rats! So much for that plan. There were tickets still available on the new high speed train. However, I would need to go to the train station with my passport to get one. The train station? The train station that the high speed trains to Shanghai leave from is on the opposite side of town from where I live! Fortunately, I could go to any train station to buy my ticket.

Unfortunately my afternoon tutoring went late and I wasn't sure if I'd have time to get to the train station before it closed so I decided to wait until the next morning.

The next day I tried again to get my train ticket to Shanghai. After 30 some minutes on the subway, I finally got to Beijing North Station. As soon as I got in line, I realized that my passport was still at home! Arg! I stayed anyways hoping I could finagle my way to a ticket with bad Chinese and my driver's license. I waited in a line that was super slow. Just to be safe, I asked the girls in front of me if this was the right line for high speed train tickets. It wasn't, of course. I needed to be at the other ticketing area. So, I went there. This time I went up to the window that I knew was for returning tickets but didn't have a line (aka only 3-4 people in front of me). The lady at the window yelled at me but at least I was able to confirm I was in the right place. I was at the back of the line again.
To entertain myself while waiting, I attempted to read the board that listed the number of tickets left for the next couple days for various trains leaving from the four Beijing train stations. (Interesting note: when I moved here 5 years ago, there were only two train stations). "Attempted" as in everything was all in Chinese characters and the cities changed every 15 seconds. I could read a few cities and recognized some as it quickly flipped through the lists. After about ten minutes I still hadn't seen anything for Shanghai. Finally all the high speed trains were listed but they flashed by so fast I wasn't sure if I had read the numbers correctly for Thursday and Friday. I waited and watched for them to come up again. When they finally did, I was able to see that there were literally hundreds of tickets left for Friday morning. Yeah! I also noticed about that time that the line I was standing in had only barely moved. I looked to the front and saw that there was no one at the window selling tickets. What!?! I gave up. Since I knew there were so many tickets available, I left with the plan to come back the next day.

Thursday turned out to be a super busy day for me since I needed to get ready for my classes next week if I was going to be out of town for the whole weekend. I finally got to the train station just before 5:00. I was happy to see that the lines were a lot shorter! After a few minutes, one of the ticket sellers announced over the loud speaker, "blah,blah, blah 5:30 blah blah" which I took to mean the ticket windows closed at 5:30. The closer I got to the window and the later it got, I felt like everyone was glaring at me: that stupid foreigner is going to be really slow at the window. But hey, buying train tickets Chinese is one of my best areas of Chinese. Whew! I was able to get my ticket no problem and I got a return ticket (this is new, before you could only buy tickets in the city you were leaving from). Success!

I left my apartment at 6am today for my 7:39 train. I had about 22 stops and three line transfers on the subway to get to the South train station and no way was I going to risk missing my train. I was happy that it took less than an hour to get there. The south train station looks brand new and was very easy to get to and find where I needed to go. I was surprised to see a Tous Le Jours, a local "French" bakery chain, where I got a pastry and a coffee for breakfast. I found the waiting area for my train which was already boarding. I got on right away, found my seat and enjoyed my breakfast. As I write this, I'm watching the Chinese countryside fly by as we speed toward Shanghai at 306km/h.