Riding China's FASTEST Bullet Train from Shanghai to Beijing
today we will be taking the world's fastest bullet train on a Cross Country trip through China we might as well be on a plane that can travel up to 350 km per hour China's Railway system is so extensive it can wrap around the world three times but we've probably made the biggest mistake ever and we will be trying out the best and fastest trains to ever exist this is a little bit overwhelming even though we have taken trains all over the world like in Thailand Japan South Korea Taiwan Malaysia Vietnam and India they're very thorough with their security checks we are so excited to take you with us on the best this is very this is China's high-speed train journey from Shanghai to Beijing previously we arrived in Shanghai China for the very first time having the warmest welcome from locals give me five give me five being blown away by the sights and devouring all the delicious street food wonderful before heading to China's Capital City Beijing by the size of this train station there's a lot of people traveling around the country okay there's so many people here this is a little bit overwhelming and it seems like everyone's in a rush but luckily we still have about just over an hour until our train leaves so I hope that's enough time but this is probably the most amount of people I've seen in one place I keep on thinking I'm in an airport like yeah no this honestly resembles an airport I feel like I'm taking a flight today but I'm just taking a train that's crazy we've taken some high-speed trains before so this morning I woke up thinking I knew what I was going to but I had no idea I'm learning more and more when you're in China just don't have any expectations so this says 11 1 a or 1 B oh it's gone and it's gone now so I think that said to Beijing I'm not sure did you I couldn't see that it wasn't in English so there is one there's only one train at 11 so it must be us and there are 29 gates to check in you can see here this is gate 29 we need to go to Gate 1 A or B I suppose we've Managed it by deduction because there's only one train at 11 so we assume that that is our train because we've got no ticket we booked our tickets online which we'll tell you about a little bit later but everything is assigned to your passport so we're trying to get to gate one which is probably another 200m down this giant building 11 1 a1b so I see over here there's a sign of it says 1 a down there that's where we got to check in also now that we've made our way all the way to the end of this waiting area we can't even see the beginning of it probably about 500m all the way down just with Gates of people checking in the sheer scale of everything we've seen here in China has blown our mind and besides all the check-in Gates there are lots of really high-end Brands here in the train station as well I mean there's even a Dior in the train station this will give you an idea of how the train station works so this is the waiting area in the centre and then these are all the different Gates where you enter and you can see they go completely underground so all the trains and platforms are beneath the station so this waiting area alone is 11,000 s m and at any time of day there are about 10,000 people in this waiting area getting ready for their train so right now there are 10,000 people waiting in this Hall alone absolutely Madness and here you can see that all the trains go underground here's some stairs and escalators that go three or four levels underground and what's amazing for me is just how organized it is obviously there's a lot of people but there's no chaos we are super excited to finally take a highspeed rail in China because China has the fastest bullet train in the entire world and we get to reach our destination which is the capital Beijing in about 4 hours I'm so curious to see how fast this train can go we are getting our fix Burger King was the only place that was doing a latte every other place was just selling straight black coffee and I think I'm not ready to switch to just straight black coffee I I have to have my little latte you'll be going at high speed if you have black coffee I will be going at 400 km an hour if I have black coffee he's alive oh I'm alive I'm ready I'm at high speed you're King coffee how did they know? but while we're sitting here enjoying our coffee waiting for our gate to open we just read that if you had to connect all of China's railway lines together it would wrap around the world three times that's Madness just think about that that's how extensive the lines really are here in China and apparently they build 3,500 km worth of Railway every single year in our country we don't have one high speed Railway Network and most countries maybe have one or two but here you can take the High-Speed Rail pretty much everywhere and obviously all the major cities like Shanghai Guangzhou you can go to Wuhan you can go to Beijing like we're going today whether we're taking a train working at a coffee shop or staying at a hotel there's nothing worse when your charges aren't compatible with the plugs in a new country that's why we want to thank Tessan our favourite Universal travel adapter for sponsoring this video Tessan is an all-in-one travel adapter with different plugs built in making it compatible in over 200 countries and it's a 65 W fast charger meaning you can charge up to 65% in just 30 minutes plus it has two USB-A and two USB-C ports turning it into a centralized charging station where you can charge up to six devices at once since a home office is so common these days having multiple ports come in handy Minus tripping over cords all over the house and the best part for us it's small and lightweight and can even fit in your pocket it's perfect for business trips holiday days or even if you're a frequent traveler like us when you're ready to try out Tessan Universal travel adapter just click the link in our description below we've also seen this stand here at the station which makes sea cucumber treats this is a replica of a sea cucumber and then these are different snacks and treats here has all the little Sea cucumbers you don't see that at every railway station in the world so I thought i' pointed out throughout station the signs are always easily visible and easy to understand in both Mandarin and English and being in China there's of course so many vending machines they're always electronic and we've got some Oreos at the top we got some juice water Pepsi Cola everything's always about convenience so now we got to go through our boarding gate and get on our train not plane train check gate check in Gate boarding gate dear passengers train 1 3 4 7 is going to depart shortly in the short time please get aboard immediately oh okay just like that scanned our passport like a ticket and we're in do you have any other spray no you can't carry oh okay okay no um liquids over 150 g I think just shaving cream so yeah you can take it you can keep ticket and passport ticket and passport okay passport Ah that's okay spray is okay shaving cream is not okay no shaving cream to Beijing they picked up that we had three spray bottles in our big luggage which was two like spray deodorants and a shaving cream and they were like can I take the shaving cream it's over 150 so they're very thorough with their security checks holy moly Okay so we've got 15 minutes 15 minutes to catch a train wow that was quite a thorough little security check I was a little bit nervous even to take a train it can get a little bit nerve-wracking so we've noticed that every time you take the metro or any train plane you have to go through a lot of Security checks here in China which I completely understand because they've being very thorough and I think that's just for the safety if every person has been checked that actually makes me feel better getting on the train and what happened to us is we put our bags through the machine and it picked up that they were three spray bottles two deodorants and one shaving cream the shaving cream was not allowed because it is over 150ml but if that's the rule that's okay so we are carriage 4 seat 8b and 8c so we're sitting next to each other which is great and let me show you here it is here it is so it goes all the way from that side through all the way over there cannot even see the start and end where do we go carriage 4 where's carriage 4 what does that say carriage 9 I think I'm not sure okay so we got to go all the way down here what's the time we've got 10 minutes so we should make it we should be fine and we should be see we're sitting together look here's what it says this train is huge I actually can't believe it you cannot see the start or end of the train that's how long it is everyone's already in their seats it's a little bit like fast pace you got to just go go go we need to be a little bit quick because this train is really long you think oh I'm already at the train it's taken us 3 minutes just to get to the end of the train where our carriage is I think this is our carriage carriage four this is us my girl welcome aboard there's a water station wow so water station as you walk in oh has a toilet this is nice very I think this is us this is us you can't leave your bag there my girl oh yeah I got to go to the front think we got a bit of a giant suitcase issue bags are on we're on let's go find our seat This Is Us 8b and C we are in you grab your one thanks for that there we go I feel like I'm on a plane as well there's like a flight attendant train attendant so the train is going to take about 4 and 1/2 hours to get over 1,200 km we're going to give you a little seat tour we've got three seats on the side no one sitting here right now but they might in a stop or two and then we've got not a lot of of space actually not too bad hey it's warm in here so I guess we're going to have to let go of these you got your tray table that comes out oh wow we might as well be on a plane yeah and I think this can recline but I'm not going to do that cause there's someone behind me that's much better so let's go to Beijing okay so it's 10:59 and the train supposedly leaves at 11 so we're going to see in 1 minute if it does and I'm pretty sure it will I actually heard the train starting up did I feel some movement oh oh my literally hit 11 like on the second okay four hours to go here we're going past all the different railway lines you can see there's all of the high speed trains insane this network is madness oh there was the train while you're on the train it's already so smooth and steady but you actually realize how fast it is when you see another one going by it goes by like the speed of light because now it feels like we're cruising we're going steady but when you see one flash by you're like okay this is a fast train a mega fast train we've already left Shanghai but we've only been on the train for 7 minutes so that means you can exit the city in 7 minutes that's how quick the Train's going we' not seeing any high-rise buildings anymore just greenery so today we're going to be reaching speeds of 350 km an hour and China is the only country that has high speed Railways that reach that speed so besides being the biggest and most extensive network it's also the fastest when you're looking out it takes your brain a few seconds to realize how much ground you are covering so quickly I'm going to have to say that everything so far has run smoothly but we've probably made the biggest mistake ever were those? did she just say bingchiling I think she also had fruit and snacks she said bingchiling that's ice cream I was just about to say that everything's gone Mega smooth but we' probably made the biggest mistake ever we didn't buy any snacks ooh she just brought some readymade Meals by so we won't starve we'll be okay I'm still upset about the snacks so good I know so anyway you can go to the train station and book your ticket the day of but we wanted to book it in advance just in case there weren't any seats left so if you go on to the app Alipay you can do anything on this app you can book hotels you can book trains buses you can pay for stuff you can scan codes you can use it as a translate app you can use Trip Advisor so when you book your train ticket it actually goes through trip.com and it costs about $92 for the 4-Hour ride it's actually not so bad if you're thinking about traveling 1,000 km and paying $92 it's going almost as quick as an airplane so we're going to just sit back and relax and enjoy the train ride talk about clean as you go so they do have bag racks for all of your big luggage but then on top there's a rack for your smaller Handbags and backpacks and then we have three seats on one side and then two seats on the other so that's kind of the layout and I don't even know how many people are on this train but it must be at least a few thousand we are about an hour into our journey and so far it's just been incredible we're kind of walking through the different carts and the cabins now but we saw in the center armrest there is a QR code and if you scan that with the Alipay app you then get a full breakdown of train that you're on your seat number which cart you're in and you can live track exactly where you are on the map plus there is a catering service on the app you can order drinks snacks fruit Starbucks Starbucks you can order some xiao long bao or some noodles and you can get it delivered straight to your seat they don't even have that on an airplane let me show you an example so here is an advert of he Shan Yuan so it's like a dumpling place you just scan the QR code you can order it and it will come right to your seat so as far as we know there are about 18 carts on this train it is so long that it would actually take us a while to get all the way from one side to the other can I just add that we are going 350 km it's not bumpy it's not noisy it is absolutely stable we're going at 350 km right now we're in now making our way through the carts because we've seen on the sign there is a dining cart so hopefully we can get something to drink and eat obviously you can order but we want to see what it looks like here some snacks we got some nuts and then there's some drinks Waters look at the fruit there's packs of all fruits Starbucks kitchen 350km an hour unbelievable insane absolutely unbelievable so all the train attendants are just bringing out food tray after tray after tray I could honestly just sit here and watch this go by the entire day it is so tranquil but it would be better with the little Starbucks we got our little Starbucks coffee on the train we had to we could not we could not get one we got a little Starbucks that's crazy 50 RMB each for a little tall one so I think that's a little bit pricey one I don't know for a little tall one for a little tall one a small big one thank you so we actually just met our lovely friend Daisy on the train and she's actually traveling to Beijing to meet her boyfriend and you were very kind to share her snacks with us because the train ride is over 4 hours long so she gave us these really delicious prune snacks it's a little chicken leg oh it's like a chicken leg like a drumstick I think yeah very cool and you what did you call this one we say we call it shim oh shim oh okay so it's like a little prune inside thank you so much for sharing okay so if you've been here for a while you know that I have to give you a bathroom tour on a high-speed train so I guess let's get started you've got a little tiny sink here don't drink this water I wouldn't recommend it and then you've got some tissues over here trash can you've got the loo the trusty loo there's a seat cover if you need and then the flush of course and there are loads of these no littering signs everywhere so you've got to keep your space clean I mean it looks relatively clean doesn't smell so bad compared to other trains that we've been on we're in Beijing we made it we made it we here nice to meet you Daisy nice to meet you now we got to go check in our hotel that was incredibly smooth and easy and perfectly on time let's find our bags and let's get off the straight bye see you nice to see you bye okay let's go oh it's cold ooh freezing sorry oh it's cold it is absolutely freezing here and after you've been on a warm heated train you forget how cold it is outside and here in front of me you can see just how many people have got off this train it shows how big it is but we want to go and see the front of it so we're going to walk all the way down to the end let's see what this high-speed train looks like so this is Beijing South Railway Station you can see how many lanes there are of all of these trains and look how impressive this is this is unreal honestly every time I see one of these it just looks like a spaceship but it it just blows my mind every single time that we have been cruising at around 350 km an hour absolutely Bonkers you can see that this thing is a machine I'm sorry if this footage is shaky because it's freezing I'm shivering but look how impressive this is obviously you got the conal like nose shape And then you got all the lights and this was the back of the train for us but now when it heads all the way back to Shanghai it'll be the front really really impressive wow it is icey cold here I'm frozen instantly Frozen here is the exit gate to get out of the train station and again you just use your passport and then you're out gosh that's impressive I'm not sure if you can hear me because the speaker is so loud but we are here in Beijing and this train station is just as massive as the one in Shanghai we're going to be in Beijing for just under a week so we got a few videos that we're going to do here please make sure you subscribe so you can check out those videos and we'll see you in the next one okay so this is not how we wanted to actually end this video but we've just checked into our hotel and we've practically been shooed away because apparently the accommodation that we booked and already paid for doesn't accommodate foreign guests and I have no idea what that means and I've never ever heard of that before so if you've heard of that if you know that this is a common occurrence in China please let me know this is the first time we've ever ever been shooed away from a hotel based on being a foreigner so yeah it was a bit of a stressful moment we're currently stranded we don't have a place to stay tonight so we're walking around and looking for a hotel so Crossing thumbs that we do actually find one it's a bit of a problem because we don't know which accommodation do allow foreigners and which accommodations don't this is quite a stressful part of travel and we don't often show this which you know we're very lucky that most of the time things go to plan what would I do without him he carries the bags and he's trying to find us a place to stay tonight don't worry girl we got you he's surprisingly upbeat about it seeing as though we'd already paid for our accommodation sometimes you learn when you're traveling there's nothing you can do didn't smile and walk down the street in the freezing cold and hopefully find a hotel apparently there's an orange Hotel I don't know if that's the name or the colour of the building but we're going down here we don't know what it looks like we don't know if it accommodates for is we don't know what the price is the problem here is a lot of the apps that we book with don't work here in China or they blocked so we can't just go online and book anything we're still amazing we're still happy to be here he's trying trying to be positive nothing will get us down and he's carrying our bags what a guy what did I do to deserve this after 30 minutes of back and forth Google translate we have a room but it's way better than what I anticipated we'd be sleeping in tonight and of course there is a huge price tag that comes along with it let me show you what is going on and when the staff brought in our bag that little machine started speaking to them they spoke obviously in Mandarin all the lights turned on the heater turned on the TV turned on and this machine I don't even know what this is replied to them and then they spoke it replied back so this is a completely voice automated room and we can't speak any Mandarin so we're not going to be able to chat back to it so I don't know how to turn the lights on I don't know how to turn the TV off when we go to sleep and this was the only room available it's freezing cold outside we couldn't keep looking for a budget hotel it's not like there's millions of hotels just outside so I guess we're staying in an overpriced but very very nice hotel I am not complaining but the wallet hurts slightly so I guess we're just going to have to figure out the rest tomorrow see you then
2024-06-30 12:06
