Today is the 80th birthday of our travel companion, Paul. Cha-Cha-Cha sang Happy Birthday to him on the bus to the train station. 
The new express train began service in January, and we got to take a four-hour ride across the bleak desert dotted with oil fields, wind farms, a few small towns, and little else. We had only about three stops along the way. Half way to our destination, there were some trees and green plants at one stop. It was fun riding four hours at 120 miles per hour on this smooth train. It is much better than riding the slow overnight train for seven hours that we would have had to ride if this train were not in service.
James (Liu) met us at Liuyuannen. He brought us a lot of snacks because it would be a three-hour drive to our hotel in Dunhuang. The usual road is only a one-hour drive, but it is closed for construction.
He told us about this area of China. Gobi Desert is not the name of a specific desert. It is a type of desert with some greenery growing on it. A desert is only sand.
The government owns the land and most companies such as the airlines, banks, trains, electric companies, and insurance companies. Education is free for the first nine years, then the parents have to pay for high school and college. If a person works for the government, 60% of health care is paid by the government.
We were still driving along the Silk Road. 2000 years ago people walked on the Silk Road, but it was named by a German Scholar only 800 years ago.
We finally arrived at our hotel, had an hour to get settled, then ate dinner at the hotel. We then got to attend an acrobatics show this evening! The cast was amazing, especially for this fairly small city of 200,000 people. They danced wearing lavish costumes, and they performed amazing tricks during the telling of a legend of the origin of the paintings in the grottos we will see tomorrow.
5719 steps/2.43 miles