The world's second most populated city

Beijing

Because of my finger, I didn't end up heading out of Shijiazhuang until Thursday, May 3.  From May 1 - 8 is "May Day Holiday" in China and it's the biggest travelling and shopping season.  About 500,000,000 Chinese hit the roads, railways and air to explore their own country.  The other 800,000,000 hit the shopping malls for incredible deals on everything.  It's kind of like the Friday after Thanksgiving, but for 7 days (Mel, get your credit cards ready for this one).  

I waited almost a week because I was lucky enough that one of the guys at my school - Matt - was also planning a trip to Beijing.  He ended up being my personal porter at the train station!  At any rate, he also bought us tickets on the new high speed train which gets to Beijing in 2 instead of 4 hours.  Upon our arrival, we started on an adventure to find James' (one of the administrators at the school) Beijing apartment (gotta love free accomodations).    Thursday afternoon/evening was a bust as we just walked around the neighborhood and watched DVDs until we both fell asleep.