I was supposed to get off where? Oh no...

I have been on trains for the past few days. I slept through my stop on my third train which was from Beijing to Datong and ended up in Inner Mongolia again 200km west of Datong and in an entirely different Province. Some Chinese helped me to buy a ticket to Pingyao. I skipped Datong because I was pissed off. I have been taking hard-seater train trips which really suck and are uncomfortable and squished. 9-12 hours on a train seems like such a short trip to me now. Last train trip I caught myself leaning on a stanger's shoulder in my sleep and possibly drooling.

I'm in Pingyao now and it's Beautiful! It's a slow paced town that has ancient walls surrounding it. The streets are all cobble stone and the buildings' roofs have been put together by putting mud and shit on the top and then laying down tiles. I have been relaxing here and I met a girl named Anna from England. She's funny, the same
age as me and we're headed in the same direction and so we decided to travel together. Apparently the north east of China is not very popular with travellers and so I didn't meet anyone new in the past few days, or anyone at all. Tonight we're headed to Xi'an and we'll stay with one of her friends and then check out the Terracotta soldiers and move on. We'll spend Christmas together and head down to Laos eventually. I am sooo Happy to have some company for the long train trips, and we really hit it off. She's very independant, smart, outspoken and incredibly good with money and so she can help me not splurge and to be more of a budget mongler.

I met an old man from Sweden who is really into photography and adventuring. His dream is to do photography for natural geographic and his work is amazing. When he was younger he did a lot of ice climbing and rock climbing, sports that I want to get into. It has been really inspirational meeting him, because when I was 15 I wanted to work for the national geographic as well, and he said that he started his photography when he was 18 and is basically self-taught. He's lead an interesting life and many of his friends from his early years are dead because they fell from rock climbing and ice climbing which is why he stopped. He said too many good people die from the sports.

NILS SJOSTROM
www.brilliantpic.spaces.live.com

At this point in my trip I really miss you, my friends and family from Canada. I miss our beautiful country as well. As Christmas nears, I wish that we could be together:(.