These were our lovely guides, all three of whom are highly educated and wonderful young women (although you wouldn't be able to guess if they were in their 20s or 50s because of the unrivaled vitality of Asians). The first image shows much of our group (there were a lot more people in other images).
Forgot to add the photos at the company that makes these high-speed rail networks. As you can see, they rival (if not outperform) the Japanese Shinkansen and the French TGV.
This is the tripoint of Russia, China and North Korea, as well as the images of the nearby Korean Autonomous Prefecture, where native Koreans use both Chinese and Korean in public and all institutions (so much for "evil China" that supposedly "doesn't respect" the rights of minorities). We reached this area in a high-speed train. China now has the largest high-speed rail network in the world, with virtually every province connected to it. Although we had five internal flights, there would've been far more without this network that has now effectively eliminated much of the domestic air travel. You know how slow boarding a plane can be, so you can imagine just how much faster it is this way.
