For those interested in the GPS coordinates, the new train station is at N 32 54.367, E 117 26.060.
Just 3 short years ago, it took about 3 hours to get from Bengbu to Hefei, but it took us only 52 minutes by high speed train, at a cost of around $10 (USD) per person.
Once arriving in the train station, we had to find our way to the Hefei Hilton. This is when things got a bit interesting for JieJie. Having traveled a bit around the world, I was well familiar with running the gauntlet of "questionably legal" taxi drivers looking to pick up a fare outside airports, bus stations, and train stations. In some places, the vendors apply a bit more pressure than others. In my opinion, Egypt was the worst. In China, they can be a bit oppressive, but I have never found any to be physically violent. Even with my verbal preparation, JieJie was a bit stunned by the mobbing. She took it in stride, however, having had a lot of experience during our travels in Europe of street hawkers. She has been well trained to keep her valuables safely tucked in as we pushed through the crowd of taxi hawkers.
To me, the taxi drivers spoke in halting English - "hello! Where are you going! Come with me! I can take you!". To JieJie, they proceeded to speak in rapid fire Chinese, and were a bit perplexed and frustrated when she didn't respond. Thinking that she was just giving them the cold shoulder, or trying to give them a hard sell, they began to plead with her, and you could see their furrowed eyebrows and whining voice inflections as they continued their pleas with her. She just continued to walk with me to the taxi stand, shaking her head calmly, looking to me with a bit of a hectic smile like "what are these people SAYING?!".
The taxi stand line was very long, and wound back and forth a few times in a Theme-Park-ride maze of guardrails. While we waited, we were also approached by several beggars and peddlers of street food and bric-a-brac. JieJie and I are used to this, and we either declined as they slowly pleaded us with a jingling can of coins, or occasionally dropped in a few YiYuan. None of the people around us made any donations. I have heard that many people are absolutely appalled at this behavior, which is the ultimate of personal disgrace, and they believe that one shouldn't provide any donations, as it will only encourage the behavior.
While we waited, there was an elderly woman with a young disabled man, which I assume she was caring for. He was physically disfigured, probably a congenital defect, and was sitting on the pavement next to the taxi line. The elder woman was feeding him an apple while collecting donations from those in the taxi line. JieJie noticed that there was a stand of water that emanated from where the man was sitting, and suspected it was urine, and was disgusted in the way that only a 12 year old American girl can be. In truth, I don't know if it was urine, or perhaps some discarded tea or drink, but JieJie was shivering in culture shock. As we stood for over 30 minutes waiting for a taxi, a few people overcame their curiosity of the pair of unlikely tourists - an older westerner paired with an oddly behaving Chinese girl, and started to talk with JieJie. I told them in halting Chinese that she didn't speak the language, that she was American, and adopted. After a few bits of back and forth, and then a light-popping-on look of "aaaah!", they did there best to not look utterly confused while attempting an English "hello" to a young girl that was....Chinese. I felt a bit of empathy to their shock, but it's not something I really can identify with. As an American, I'm very used to the fact that we all look different, but share the same language and culture.
After a taxi ride through the busy streets of Hefei, we finally reached our destination, which was our home for only one night, and was a very luxurious 5-star hotel. JieJie heaved a great sigh of relief as we entered our hotel room, and demanded that we leave our shoes at the door! She told me that she would need to burn them once we went back home, due to all the "very gross" things that we had stepped in during the day.
In our elevator, there was a sign for "no Spitting". Not something we see a lot of in our neighborhood elevators.
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