Taking the FAST train through China!

Recently I did a work trip that had me visiting 6 Chinese cities in 5 days.  I flew into Beijing and took trains and planes between cities.  I finally flew out of Guangzhou back to Singapore.  Basically I was tasked with lecturing to local clinicians about IV Therapy.  It was a grueling trip but I found some fun along the way.  My favorite part of the trip was the very warm reception I received from the nurses.  
When traveling in China for work I am usually accompanied by one of our local team members.  This trip, I needed an interpreter for all my lectures so Shu, our Marketing Director and basically "jack of all trades" for China and I spent a lot of time together.  Shu was born and raised in China but spent many years in the US so her English is great.  The pic at the left was taken at a wonderful temple in Wuhan called the Yellow Crane Pagoda. We ended up with a few hours of down time so Shu took me to explore.  I was very lucky to have her to translate information at the temple and I made sure that she appreciated some of the Chinese to English translations that I noticed along our way.  I think at both work and fun, we made a great team.

---

I love the signage and translations in China.  Chinese is extremely hard to translate for more than one reason.  To a native English speaker the meaning of the translated sign is usually very clear, although the actual wording is just not quite as we'd usually expect it.  These signs make me smile.  
This sign was directing us through the Yellow Crane Temple.  
This Pagoda style temple in Wuhan is very well known.   There have been many beautiful poems written about this temple over thousands of years.  
I feel very lucky to be able to visit such a beautiful place.  More pictures in the slideshow below.

---

The nurses in China were amazing!   As I mentioned I was tasked with lecturing to groups of nurses in a variety of cities.   Since I don't speak Mandarin, I had She with me (thank goodness) and as a team we tackled lecture after lecture- usually at least 2 per day.   I would guess this was at least as exhausting for her as for me.  The nurses quizzed me with thought provoking questions and shared their local experiences. Long days...  however, the huge hugs and hearty hand shakes I got from the white capped nurses made it all worthwhile.  I love meeting nurses in different countries.  You can see from the pics Chinese nurses proudly continue to wear caps.  It was like going back in time but the heart of nursing shines through the ages.

So, I mentioned that I rode the high speed trains.  Here is the max speed I noticed on one of the legs of my journey-305 km/hr!  These trains are clean, comfortable, timely, and relatively low cost.  It was an amazing experience.  
When the new train driver (engineer?) replaces the current driver he saluted the oncoming train in a neat little ceremony.  
Although I'm not sure if I could figure out how to buy a ticket without some Chinese assistance, I would recommend riding the trains!  Once you have the ticket, it's pretty easy to figure out from there.

---