So here is a quick update on how things are going for us while we are wondering about. We just finished up six wonderful days in Beijing and now we are in a hotel relaxing a little before a big day tomorrow.
So early early this morning we got up and headed for Beijing South railway station. It was there that we caught the G117 train of which is the above picture. The train line that we were on is only two weeks old. The train is the new “maglev” train installed that runs between Beijing and Shanghai. The train journey normally takes 13 hours but this one it only took about 5 hours! It was great and fun to think that we were traveling at 190 mph.
After we arrived in Shanghai we took a subway to our hostel. That was when the hiccups began. Once we arrived at the stop that we needed to get off, we found out that we could not get off at the exit that the hostel’s directions told us too. After a fair bit of asking the white people that we saw around us, we finally made it to the check-in counter.
In the first paragraph you might have noticed that I said hotel rather than hostel. That is because right as told the lady at the front desk my name she explained that the lady that was in our room was planning on staying another night and as such were over. They then told us that they had booked us at hotel and were going to pay the difference for the booking. It was soo very nice of them to do that, it just took us away from the central location that hostel had. Oh well, we have a place to sleep and that is good enough.
So here we are, in a random hotel in the middle of Shanghai. It’s fun. And am falling asleep wring this and so I am gonna call it a night. Love ya all!
Jordan crammed on the top bed on the train from Chongqing to Xi'an. Poor kid but at least he is happy!
For anyone that comes to China, the experience of riding on a train is an experience to be had. In this post I am going to write about our first train experience when we went from Chongqing to Xi’an. Before I do that though, I am going explain some things about the train system to give you a bit of background.
When you purchase ticket there are four classes of tickets that you can buy:
Hard Seat: The least expensive tickets on the train but also largely to be considered the least comfortable. Despite being called ‘hard’ seat they are lightly padded and in a three plus three arrangement. If you are going a long distance, these aren’t recommended.
Soft Seat: The second most expensive ticket. In a two by two arrangement, the comfort of this section of the train I would say is largely comparable to that on coach in an airplane.
Hard Sleeper: This one is the third most expensive ticket that you can buy. The beds a located in their own open cabin and are three high on each side for a total of six beds. The prices for these tickets vary on which berth you buy; top is least expensive and the bottom is the most expensive. Middle is, well, just that, right in the middle in terms of price. Once again, the name doesn’t tell the true story as beds aren’t hard and are rather comfortable with clean linens.
Soft Sleeper: The most expensive ticket that you can buy. The beds are wider, supposedly softer and often there are personal televisions and power outlets. The cabins also have doors that can close. While offering more comfort, they are often not preferred by international travelers due to the high price and the fact you might be trapped with someone who is smelly or snore and there is no relief, comparatively.
So on Tuesday morning we board the K1004 from Chongqingbei (Chongqing North) to Xi’an leaving at 10:14 am. Much to my happiness, there was a McDonalds and I delighted myself to a breakfast sandwich :). After that we headed through security which was a simple metal detector and x-ray machine. I am surprised that the security stuff has not gone off because each time I have gone through I have had a lot of fireworks in my backpack and coins and metal in my pockets. I still feel safe though. 🙂
Anyway, once we got through security we went into this big reception hall and waited for our train to be called. Since this was the originating station, there were a lot of other people there waiting for the same train. They called our train and like a herd of cattle, we (including hundreds of other Chinese) crammed through the gates. Much to our despise, we encountered steps. With no ramp or escalator in sights, we had to carry our bags up the stairs, which wouldn’t have been that bad if our bags didn’t weigh so much. But after P90x, our muscles are ginormous so it didn’t matter. 😛
We found the #15 car and boarded our train car. Since we are cheap (:)) we had tickets for the top hard sleeper. After lifting our luggage onto the luggage rack, we climbed up the ladder to our places. The top beds, we found out at that time, only have about two and half feet before you encounter the top of the train. So we magically became Chinese gymnasts and got our bean pole bodies situated. After a while on the train a lady came around and collected our tickets and she gave us a plastic card. At the end of the train ride, we gave the card back and got our tickets.
As for the train ride its self, it was a lot of fun. Although no one spoke English, we still had a lot of fun interacting with them. Also, we had a chance to explore the train. We found a cabin that was cooler and largely empty and played a card game. That was a lot of fun because this boy and girl kept coming up to the table behind us and the boy would make a farting sound and giggling. Being immature like I am, I joined in the fun and started making some juicy flatulence sounds. I don’t why but that never fails to be funny. 🙂
When the train arrived in Xi’an, we were blessed with a ramp and no stairs. 🙂
Alright, so it is time for some updates. In this post I am going to update you on our journey up to arriving in Xi’an.
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One of the warnings that we got while we were doing our training in Shenzhen was to not expect that things will go as planned. Planning for this trip was evidence of that. On Thursday night last week we finally decided on our tickets and contacted Stone to have him purchase the tickets. After being told that there were ticket available and then that there wasn’t and then that there were only standing tickets, we decided on a route that would allow us to one, travel and two, not stand.
Originally we were going to from Jishou to Xi’an through Nanyang on Monday morning and arrive Tuesday morning but that didn’t work out and we settled on another way that would get us there a day earlier. On Monday at about 12:30 pm we jumped about the Stone express, aka Stone’s car. After about an hour and a half we arrived in Stone’s hometown, Xuishan and then board a bus.
At 2:30 pm the bus we were on left the station en route to Chongqing. After about five hour on that bus we arrived in Chongqing and had our other adventure. Because our train was leaving the next morning, we needed to find this hotel that Stone recommended for us. Once we got off the bus we saw a line of taxis and we were told by the drivers that it would be 100 RMB to get to the hotel. Knowing that they were trying to rip us off, Stone told us to go down the road and there we got a normal priced taxi.
Once on the taxi we had some really great views of Chongqing and the tall buildings of this city with 3.5 million people. The taxi then dropped us off at this shopping area in this town and we didn’t know what to do. After waiting a while, a short Chinese girl (eh, they are all short :P) came up to us talking only Chinese. Confused at what she was trying to say or do, she eventually pulled out the two train tickets that Stone got us and we knew that she was the right lady. So went with her and checked into the hotel. The fun thing about the hotel was that we were on the thirteenth floor and we would light and throw these firecrackers about the window. You will need to watch videos yourself to see how loud these are but they are louder than any I have heard in America and it would echo in the whole city center of Chongqing.
The next morning we repacked our suitcases a little and headed for a taxi to the Chongqingbei or Chongqing North Rail Station. That was quite experience. But it must wait, because this post is getting long in the tooth, as the saying goes.
So it is pretty late at night so I figured that I will wet your appitite for a picture, with, well, just that.
The above picture is off me will we were biking around the city walls. As we were on one portion, we saw this and knew that we had to take a picture. The girl on the left, her name is Joana and she is from Brazil and on the right is Gary, from Maritius. We might them here at the hostel and it has been a blast. The best part is that they know a lot more Chinese than I do and so it was a lot of help for us.
Oh dear, I am starting to fall asleep so see ya in the morning!
So hello all ya’ll. I am here in Xi’an and having lots and lots of adventures. I don’t have a lot of time so I will try to do quick update here on the past couple of days and then I will try my hardest to update with details.
So we left Huayuan on Monday at about 12:30 and traveled to Xuishan. From that town we caught a five hour bus to Chongqing. We arrived in that town at night time and had a fun time find the hotel that we were supposed to stay at. We eventually got some help, checked into the hotel room and called it a night.
The next morning we caught a taxi to the train stain for a 12 hour train to Xi’an. At 11pm we arrived and got taxi to our hostel. In the morning we meet up some friends that we met that are from Brasil and Mauratius and went to the Terracotta Warriors and the City Walls. More on that later… You’ll love it. 🙂
Alrighty now, so I am focus and a little more motivated so I am going to finish this out.
Friday night (July 1) – We will catch in overnight train to Beijing
Saturday morning (July 2nd) to Thursday evening (July 7th) – When we arrive in Beijing, our branch President’s driver is going to pick us up from the train station. Thankfully Pres. Lewis was willing enough to let us stay at his home. I am really grateful for that as it really help alleviate the stress of this all. 🙂 All of the days in between (except for Sunday) we will be seeing sights such as the Forbidden city, the Great Wall and others. I hear there is even a literal underground city to tour that was built during the cold war.
Thursday night to Friday morning (July 8th) – Overnight train to Shanghai. This particular train journey will be comparatively shorter than the rest as it is on a new express train; one of the fast in China.
Friday morning to Sunday night (July 10th) – We arrive in the morning in Shanghai and then we will head off to our hostel. To be totally honest, I am not totally sure what the hallmark sights are in Shanghai but I am sure that we will hit some awesome one. Sunday afternoon we will board a MAGLEV train to Shanghai Pudong airport.
For the flight home, well, that deserves a post of it’s own. I will update that one tomorrow.
So sorry for not having updates but I will be slowly working on it now. But I suppose that I will give the one of the bigger updates.
About a week ago we found out that our teaching was going to ending a week earlier. So that we end teaching on the 24th rather than the 1st that we were anticipating. We looked at our options and saw that we could either move our flight one weeks earlier to the 4th for $170 or use that money to do some more traveling in China. We choose the later and this is our plan:
Monday – June 27th: Travel from the school in a taxi to Jishou and then take a bus to Fenghuang. Fenghaung is a town just south of Jishou that a lot of people have said is quite beautiful. It is a older town that has many homes and building by the river that are built on stilts. We will stay the night in Fenghaung.
Tuesday – June 28th: Wake up early and take a bus back to Jishou. Once we get to Jishou we will take a 10:51 am train to Nanyang which arrives at 8:50 pm. We will then board the 9:24 pm train to Xi’an.
Wed – Friday – June 29th thru July 1st: We will arrive at 7:14 am in Xi’an and there we will stay until Friday seeing the sights. One thing the Xi’an is famous for is the Terracotta Warriors, perhaps one of the greatest archaeological finds in Chinese history.
To be continued tomorrow. I can’t focus right now…
So I had promised update and there hasn’t been but here is why: I have been working on a new look to my website.
Yeah, I don’t recommend it. It is a lot of work and one might judge it to me a waste of time. Oh well, it is done. Let me know what you think: Leelovell.com
Also, I changed the way that you can do comments on the blog using a system call disqus. It allows you to do a lot more with the comments section, especially with integrating it into social network. Plus you can log in with facebook or gmail to post a comment.
Well, there is no class tomorrow so I am going to call it a night and write tomorrow for all the update. Love ya’ll!
So this past weekend we didn’t have much to do mainly due to that fact that it has been pouring all weekend. But we did decided that we would head out to town and see what was happening. On our way to the rec center to see what was going on there there are a bunch of temporary restaurants that people set up and we saw the above… thing.
Upon closer examination, I noticed that it was three sliced fish head stacked on top of each other. Ew.
Well, I am not going to write much because we have a early morning tomorrow. We have no teaching this next week and we are going to head out of town and catching a 8 am bus in the morning. Our biggest stop is a place called Zhangjiajie where the supposed model for the mountains in Avatar came from. We are very excited for it and of course, there will be lots of pictures that I will upload. I am evening thinking of doing a post just for potential background images.
Anyway, we are off to read our scriptures, watch a movie and call it a night. See you in 4 days!
