Shanghai,
Shanghai,
China
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Travel through China is tough. Not only do they not speak English, but there are 1.3 billion other people trying to travel at the same time that we are. On this note, the plan was to go from Guilin to Xi'an, but there were no available trains between those cities. Instead, we boarded a bus to the bigger city of Changsha (pop. 2.3 million) where we thought our chances of finding a train to Xi'an would improve. Sadly, the only train available to Xi'an had standing room only--for TWENTY hours. We had a group vote and unanimous decision to head to Shanghai instead to perhaps find another route to Xi'an. Missing Xi'an would be painful to me, because some of our most exciting stuff was going to be there. They have the Terracotta Warriors, which would be neat, but even better was the crazy mountain trail we were planning to walk. This was going to be the wildest part of our trip, and to leave it out is disappointing. Our chances of coming home alive did improve however, because this trail was sure to be our death. Changsha proved to be a boring, but friendly city. There is absolutely nothing to see there, so sadly we s[ent a good majority of our time in our hotel. The food was delicious, though, and everyone was friendly. We had a lot of stares, especially Phil, who had a lot of fingerpointing and 'ahhhs'. But what should we expect from a city that sees so few tourists? One family even took a family portrait with us, pretty funny. A lot of younger people in this city are learning English and they were eager t opractice it. While Alban and Phil were looking for train tickets, I watched the bags and spoke with the crowd of at least a half-dozen students wanting to hear everything about me and America. This was a lot of fun for me.
Anyway, after a ten hour train ride to Shanghai, we now need to find something to do. There is still the off-chance we will find a way to Xi'an, even with our limited time frame. We'll see how that all pans out today. We found a nice hostel here last night, but it was so crowded we had to separate into differen dorm rooms, with no room key. It is kind of obnoxious to go to the toilet and then have to find someone to open the room again, but I guess that is life sometimes. I'm going to try and find somethihng to eat now. Maybe that bag of Oreos that is in my room. I have become quite addicted to those amazing little cookies.
Did I mention that I saw Jacki Chan? I think about 53,000 times.
Comments
Man
I really hope you get to go to Xi'an. The Terracotta army is awesome. The story behind it is even more awesome.