Originally Posted by
former230
Just a follow up post on this topic - my trip is now 6 weeks out...getting closer!
Still planning on taking the HSR from Beijing to Shanghai (one way) on a friday (nov 16th)
I was thinking of emailing my hotel concierge in BJ in advance to get me 3 one way tickets but I am not sure if this would be possible as it appears passports are required for foreigners purchasing tickets and it sounds like we should have plenty of time to get them at 48 hours in advance anyways (unless perhaps fridays are very busy for travel to SH).
One clarification I am hoping someone can address - once in Beijing, where can we actually purchase the tickets? Only at the main HSR train station?
Otherwise, I will be reporting back my experience here in case anyone else who is completely new to it (like me) wants to see another data point.
Thanks.
Well, I am back! Hard to believe the trip is over. Great times.
The concierge at the Hilton Wangfujing offered to get our tickets for us after we told them what we wanted. It turned out the morning 2 digit G trains were sold out already in first class (we bought on a wed for a fri AM train) so we ended up getting first class tickets for the G101 train. Grabbed a taxi from Wangfujing to Beijing south station early friday AM for 35 yuan. Everything at the train station was very easy to decipher as expected, so no issues.
The KFC in the train station was absolutely packed...long lines. I couldn't help but wonder if Moondog was amongst the crowd. ha. As he has said before, the food options on the train are poor.
Thanks all for the advice/help here. Certainly made the trip go smoother and my colleagues were impressed at the knowledge I had in advance about how things would work .
Cheers!