I have been hearing about Shanghai's World Expo for two years, so on the weekend of Friday the 13th I bought a train ticket for Shanghai and headed east. I live in Nanjing where they just opened a new "high speed" train to Shanghai. I love trains so I was very excited about this.

Since Friday was an unlucky day, I booked a ticket for the G7010 train, on Thursday at 8:12 in the evening, so I could take the company to the train station after work. Everything went smoothly until I entered the station and looked at the schedule board. My train number was not listed. I was early, so I just went to the information desk to ask where the waiting room for my train was. The information person pointed to the left and I went up to the room and took a seat.

After an hour the board still didn't mention my train but it did show a train leaving at 8:18. A little nervous, I went to the timetable board and there was my train scheduled to leave at 8:12. I walked to the boarding gate, showed the attendant my ticket and she open the “special” gate and let me in. Confused I walk to end of the platform stairs and still no G7010. As I wandered back an orange vested aid came up to me and said something about getting on the train that was coming to platform 11. So I waited, but a different train came in.

Deciding not to panic I went back to the waiting room; where the orange vested aid excitedly tried to get me to go back to platform 11. He was soon joined by several other orange vests who all tried to get me to turn around. Finally I pointed toward the information desk and they smiled and indicated that was a good idea.

I wasn't a good idea. There the attendant indicated I could exchange my ticket for tomorrow. That is when I realized my ticket was for 8:12 am, Thursday morning! The orange helpers were telling me I could take the next available train. Turning, I ran to the platform, showed the security guard my ticket who pointed to the first car, I ran what had to be several km’s, and jumped on the train with minutes to spare.

The rest of my trip, unfortunately, was just as eventual as the first part; some good, some not so good. Stay tuned for more.