Des took me to the train station. Beijing West is very impressive: modern, non-decrepit, big, functional. Everyone has a plastic bag just like mine: filled with ramen noodles. I've finally discovered why ramen noodles were invented: the train provides jugs of hot water, and so self-contained bowls of dehydrated noodles are the perfect train food.

I'm sitting on bunk twenty-five of the soft sleeper car of train K157, from Beijing West railway station to Beihai on the southern coast of Guangxi province. This is it. We dropped my family off at the airport, took a taxi to the station, and I just said goodbye to Des on the platform. This is the point where my path diverges from the original plan, a one-week vacation in Beijing for a wedding, and instead becomes six months or longer in Guilin. The train is about to start a 31-hour trip (40, actually, if I miss my stop), and already the guy in the upper bunk is snoring. Earlier, Des and I waited on the platform beside my car. He pointed with his chin at at couple locked in embrace behind us. "Should we do that?"

We didn't.

I boarded, and Des left. I stood in the corridor window. The couple was still there; he standing straight and she clinging to him. They parted, and he stood watching. She passed behind me in the corridor, stopped at the next compartment, turned to look at him. I could hear her sniffling. He gestured with his hands to his cheeks: "turn that frown into a smile." She mostly sniffled. He saw me watching, and smiled at me, then back at her. He walked up to her window, and rapped the glass. Finally, he stepped back. Soon, the train lurched, and we started to roll very slowly forward. He gave her a last big smile and a wave, then, as I passed, gave me also a smile and a wave. I smiled back.