After over a month of traveling through Estonia, Finland, Russia and Mongolia, we rolled into Beijing and officially concluded the Trans-Siberian Railroad. A bittersweet moment for sure (it was the conclusion of my DREAM trip after all), but I was eager to explore China!

I’d love to say that I was enamored with Beijing from the moment I stepped off the train, but alas, that was not the case.

Certainly, I expected a lot of pollution (as Beijing is home to almost 5 million cars) and after years of frequenting L.A. I thought I was prepared. But I was shocked. The air was literally thick with pollution and it was only a matter of days before I developed a minor cough.

Right off the bat, Conor and I wanted to book our train tickets to Shanghai in a few days; a task that was much easier said than done. It took nearly an hour of running back and forth all over the station for one customer service desk to another, before we finally located the right window.

Its no secret that cabbies all over the world can be sleazy, money grubbers, particularly when its clear you are a foreigner. But never in my life have I experienced such egregious dishonesty – and from an official taxi stand no less. We were charged 8x what the fare actually should have been! Outrage doesn’t even begin to describe the feeling.

Fuming, we dropped our bags at the hostel and eased our anger with a walk to the south end of Tiananmen Square.

Further consolation was found in the form of curbside veggie dumplings that were so good we nearly forgot about being taken advantage of. (Nearly…)

As I crawled into bed that night (a real bed; a major upgrade from the third class bunk on the 30 hour train ride from Ulaan Baator I had been working with previously) I couldn’t help but smile. I had completed the Trans-Siberian railroad – a life goal, achieved. And, there was so much more travel ahead!