Our journey home, although uncomfortable, will be pure luxury compared to some of my students. We got a deal on our flight to Shanghai so unfortunately we will leave here at 6 a.m., arrive there at 9:20 a.m. after a one hour flight but won't leave for Canada until 6:00 p.m. The long wait doesn't sound fun but we are hoping there'll be free Internet and lots of places to eat. Then we have a 14 hour flight followed by a 3 hour wait in Toronto and then the final leg will be a 1 hour flight to Ottawa. Time from Jinan, China to Ottawa will be about 28 hours.
I have been talking to my students and their trips home are much harder than mine. One of my students, who lives in the far south of China, has to take a 48 hour train ride home. The train is not like VIA. It's cold with hard seats and very crowded. There are people who can't afford seats or weren't able to get them so they have to stand, sleep in the aisle, or even stand in the washroom. The trains are unheated, overcrowded, noisy, and worst of all people smoke on the trains. I feel so bad for them.
One station in the south was on the news the other day with 110,000 people lined up for trains. On January 10th they said that an estimate of over 30 million people rode the train. The size of the population here is mind boggling. The longest trip by one of my students home last year was a 72 hour train trip. It puts a 5 hour drive to Toronto into perspective.
Don
More info and photos of the Spring Festival Rush:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-01/12/content_10643647.htm
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