travel plans a-brewin'

Just an update on our upcoming travel plans: yesterday we went to the train station and bought tickets for the first leg of our trip. We were originally planning to take the overnight train to Shanghai on the January 19, but this is a crazy time for travel in China. It's Spring Festival (aka Lunar New Year) time, so pretty much half of the Chinese population is trying to get home for the holidays. There were no more tickets for the 19th when we got to the station, so we ended up buying tickets for the super-fast, super-luxurious train that leaves the evening of the 20th. We're pretty excited--our plan is to travel for about three weeks or so, hitting a number of cities and cultural/historical attractions. We've kind of outlined the different places we most want to see. At the same time, I'm thinking we may run into a number of snafu's along the way, since the ticket situation is so precarious. We're already planning on flexibility being the key word, though, so even if we don't get to go to all the places we most want to go, we know we'll be going somewhere. Next step: narrowing my three-week travel necessities down to one backpack.