Midnight Train to Beijing
A common ritual for expatriates in China is the visa run. Because of the limited number of days a tourist can spend in one “visit” to China (in our case it was sixty days), those staying in China for longer durations must make the trek out of the country and back in to get a new stamp on their passport and reset the timer. Common destinations include Mongolia, South Korea, and Hong Kong, whose special status counts as leaving China. Often it’s used as an excuse to take a vacation every couple of months, and that’s what Michael and I did for our first run to Hong Kong—we made a weekend of it. This time, however, was supposed to a formality: take the train from Beijing to Hong Kong (a twenty-four hour trip), then immediately get on the return train and head back. Clean, simple, and efficient. However, there was one snafu to trip us up.
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