Mongolia to Beijing to Shanghai.

I’m still not up to par—hack! cough!—and will, therefore, take the easy way out with today’s post by offering a few photos taken on my 2011 train trip from Moscow across Siberia to Mongolia, then south to Beijing.
 

 At the Mongolia-China border, we switched from a Russian to a Chinese train. Each of the sleepers was watched over by an attendant, two of whom are seen here. Neither one of these delightful creatures spoke any English, but who cares?
 

Accommodations were Spartan, but neat and clean, and perfectly adequate for the one-night journey to the Chinese capital.
 

 After leaving the group I had been with since Moscow, I took the new high-speed train from Beijing to Shanghai.
 

 The ride was smooth and we consistently ran at 300 kilometers an hour, sometimes a bit more than that. That’s about 190 mph. (Seriously, as a nation, we should be ashamed of ourselves.)
 

 Shanghai was wonderful. Crowded, yes, with a population of 29 million, but this tranquil garden is smack in the middle of downtown. Strangely, although it was all around us, you could barely hear the traffic. Would I do it all again? Absolutely!