Beijing- Xi'an March 26

Yesterday we walked through the "Hutong" which are the original small alleys of old Beijing. They are rapidly disappearing as "progress" comes to China. The government has started to preserve them however which is fine with the citizens. the houses are 1 story high with a small kitchen, sitting room and bedroom. There are no bathrooms. Though they have electricity and running water the toilet facilities are located on the street about the middle of each block. Must be interesting in the winter. They have always lived like this and the seniors love their homes and resist govt attemts to move them to apartments in the suburbs away from their friends. As many as 1/3 of the population of Beijing livie in the hutong. It is exactly as I pictured Beijing to look. We had lunch with a local woman who makes money on the side hosting small groups in her home. What impressed me was how clean the alleys were and no smell despite the limited sanitary facilities. There are many many small dogs beloved by their owners- many wear coats- and still no droppings anywhere.
At nightfall we got on out train to Xian- 800 miles and 11 hours. each compartment was a 6 by 6 with 4 berthss- toilet at the end of the car. About 10 compartments to a car, so potentially 40 people for one toilet. We had just 2 to a room thenk goodness as I have no idea how we could fit 2 more. Eacg berth had a flat screen TV though only 2 channels and in chinese. Big picture window. This is a vert rowdy group and we all piled into 1 compartment to see how many we could fit in. We were laughing so loudly that a teenage girl came to tell us to be quiet. we then split a bottle of chinese firewater which didn't help the sound level. We settled down around 11. It was hard to sleep but certainly an experience. More soon. Staying in a village the next few days, no internet.