Day 36 On the Train to Xi'an

Sales people on a train, well in our class anyway! Every so often someone in almost train staff uniform(I latter noticed they were missing a red band round one arm still all legit though) enters the carriage yelling holding up their item, some of the sales pitches lasted 15 minutes. They would put the item on each table, many just ignored it but we saw some sales.
The night was the tough bit, when the food carts stopped coming round at 11:30pm things get quieter but the bright light stays on! Like the couple we share the diner plate size table with we tried many combinations of resting against each other, the table and the wall to get even a few minutes sleep but I found most would cut circulation off to an arm or leg and quickly wake me.
The first cart came through yelling as usual at 6:30am signalling the end of quiet time & thankfully an end to the night.
We followed our progress watching for the station names as we passed through on our map in the book with some help from the couple sitting with us.
Approaching Xi,an what seems like a month of continuous fireworks was still happening out the windows. There were 5 other westerners on the train in our class and in speaking with one as we arrived at 9pm he was saying its a lantern festival evening where thousands are released into the sky.
After checking in to a nice hostel we ventured out in the -2 plus a bit of wind chill to see the action. Loads of fireworks were still continuing but we couldnt find too many lanterns being released we were a bit late arriving so time for sleep!