Ada:

In spite of the fact that I have an extremely high tolerance for (travel related) risk, now that I'm witnessing trains sell out across the board, I feel compelled to modify the advice I proffered upthread. (It's also worth noting that Jinan and Qingdao comprise 2 of the 3 cities in which I have been completely shut out of train tickets.)

As such, I urge you to be aggressive, and get tickets as soon as they go on sale. Assuming you're not set up to buy online, you might want to scan your passports, forward to your relatives, and implore them to get tickets for you. 10 days out, you shouldn't have many problems, but your relatives might require a bit of "extra motivation" to seriously go to bat for you.