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Thursday morning I went back to the Military Museum while Sascha revisited the Forbidden City.

As long as you show your ID or passport at the ticket office, you get a free ticket for most museums. Armed with my ticket, I had no problems with gaining access this time to the museum. The guard was in a receptive mood today.

The Military Museum has a vast display of recent military weaponry on the ground floor going back to World War II.

The first floor is devoted to the Second Revolutionary Civil War (1927-1937), the second floor to the Japanese War of Aggression (1937-1945) and the third floor to the Third Revolutionary Civil War (1945-1949).

The Japanese committed many atrocities in China during the War of Aggression, and perhaps that is why they want to commemorate it so much.

One display that did interest me was the one showing the tunnels the Chinese built under their Japanese controlled villages. Used for storing food and arms, it was an idea that was taken up to good effect a few decades later in Vietnam and I can guess who taught the Viet Cong this trick and probably supplied a lot of their weapons.

Unfortunately most of the floors had their displays written in just Chinese, so it wasn’t always easy to follow the stories.

What did astound me in the museum were the number of young children having their photos taken in front of tanks and planes. You certainly have to pay your respect to the wars, but you don’t have to glorify them.

One bossy young lady pushed other visitors out of the way to ensure that she had a clear view of her two friends in front of a Russian jet. Just seems a mite strange, everyone was proudly taking photos of children in front of weapons of war so they could take them home to show family and friends.

Just a mite bizarre.

After leaving the museum, I went shopping for goodies for our train journey. Some beautiful French bread, and ham to go with that illicit cheddar cheese I had smuggled in. Jodie was missing our cheese, so asked me to bring some over with me. It was only when we were landing, and they said no dairy products were allowed in, that I realised I was smuggling contraband.

Naturally, I selected a bottle of Californian wine from the shelves to go with the food. The cheapest was £6 a bottle, which I didn’t think was expensive for an imported wine.

So after another day’s hard graft, Jodie arrived home to get us organised for our Xian adventure. Jodie's colleague Jo joined us and we almost fell at the first hurdle as we tried to get a cab.

Flagging down a taxi to take us to the train station proved an impossible task during rush hour, so we reverted back to the subway – together with our cases! We arrived at the new West Beijing Station with plenty of time to spare and found ourselves sitting in the Soft Seats Lounge.

Although that sounds like a hit record from the fifties, the tickets allowed us into a lounge that contained sofas and were not as crowded as the Hard Seat Lounge. I didn’t find out if they were actually wooden seats, but I guess they must have been.

They don’t allow passengers onto the platform until the train is there, so the lounge was the relaxing way of using the time.

There was the usual bustle as the time approached. As we stood in the queue in front of the ticket inspector, waiting for our train to be called, a Chinese gentleman noticed the wine in my bag. He appeared to take a liking to it and inquired about the label.

In my best Chinese, I managed to explain it was for the train journey. He got my respect when he offered me his part of the ledge that he was sitting on, but I declined as our train was imminent.

The ticket collector took her cue and allowed us through after checking the tickets. We left the hustle of the lounge and walked out into

As a consequence there was a surreal atmosphere as we made our way to the train. It was like a scene from a Hitchcock movie. As we walked out into the darkness, the long silver train lit sat at the platform in a dim glow from the scant lighting.

All the other platforms were empty as we made our way to the guard who was checking the tickets and directing passengers to their compartments. I showed him my ticket and he pointed in the opposite direction, before calling me back with an, “Excuse me sir?”

He explained to me where on the carriages they were numbered so that we could find our one without further ado. A real gentleman.

With all the eagerness of schoolchildren entering a sweet shop, we found our compartments and began to unpack. We travelled in two double berths, en suite compartments, which although compact, had enough space for the four of us to eat and relax together.

Each bunk had it’s own TV and a headset for individual listening. All the channels were Chinese, naturally.

After the luggage had been stowed away, we settled down for dinner. The guard came along selling ice creams, so I managed to get a desert.

There was no restaurant on the train, but they did bring a drinks trolley along and inquire whether you wanted tea or coffee in the morning.

After eating, it was a question of who knew any card games? It was the normal case that we all knew some, but couldn’t remember any of the rules. My offer to teach the girls Texas Hold ‘Em fell on death ears.

As the train wound its way noisily through the countryside, I don’t think that any of us had a good night’s sleep. I think I might have been lucky to get a couple of hours. Jodie complained in the morning about hearing my camera clicking away in the wee hours.

Military Museum photos >>>

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