A long train ride

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Trip End Ongoing

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Where I stayed

old street youth hostel

(Huangshan hotels)

Flag of China Huangshan, Anhui, China
Sunday, February 21, 2010

We got up early eager to get a jumpstart on the next day, as we were heading out to Huang shan. Packing our bags, we went and checked out sad as it was one of the nicest hostels we had stay in so far. Throwing all of our luggage into the back, we jumped into the taxi and headed towards the train station. So far this was the biggest concentration of people I had seen since I had entered China. We had arrived very early because we wanted to make sure we were in the right place at the right time. After waiting for 2 hours though, the train had finally arrived. We made our way around the winding gates and up and down the stairs. Upon entering the train however, we noticed people were in our seats. After telling them that they were in the incorrect seats, they pointed at the dates on our ticket…. tomorrow…That was when we were supposed to be there. Reluctantly we made our way alllll the way back to the ticket station and Danielle negotiated with the lady getting us tickets for later that day at 6 p.m. (Our first tickets were for 12 earlier that day), meaning we had to sit, at the station, for another 6 hours… Yeah it was pretty lame but I can't complain because we still were able to salvage the situation. It was for the best however because the train we got on next was wayyy more spacious and it had sleepers on it even though we had paid the same price. We played cards, watched a movie, (which had gotten us a crowd of spectators as they had nothing better to do on the train.), chatted with some of the locals, made fun of one of the food couriers who keep saying "Yeah!" instead of “beer” only upon passing our stall(He got a kick out of it too but couldn’t manage to way water hahaha.),slept, slept and slept some more. It was a total train ride of 16 hours.

I woke with the sun on my face, warming my cold body. I was mildly sore from sleeping due to the cots being stiff and shorter than my large frame. It was also sore because I couldn’t get a good nights rest with this Asian lady chatting almost the entire trip. We got off the train to find it much colder than we had anticipated. As soon as we had entered through the security checkpoints, we were swarmed with street merchants, asking and demanding that we buy their goods. They are such a nuisance but you have to understand as it is there job. With so many people if you don’t take action in China you will be outsold by the next person. After having to fight to get a taxi, we were driven through this much less chaotic city towards our hostel. The “Old Street Youth Hostel” is where we had anticipated on staying. It surprisingly was another nice hostel that we were profound to find. The staff speaks very excellent English and the dorm prices are very reasonable at 40 Yuan per bed. They have a bar, pool table, free wi-fi, computers with internet if you have no laptop and YOU GET YOUR OWN BATHROON AND SHOWER!!! It was a terrific choice on our behalf. You have pine bunks beds, each with their own light, electrical outlet and an a/c / heater. After dropping off our luggage we wandered around the city taking in all the sights and sounds of the kinfolk. We stopped and ate at a restaurant, thinking since we were no longer in a big city we would get a good price. It could have been true had the man not ripped us off. We had 3 dishes between the three of us AND GOT CHARGED 150 Yuan! Outraged, I told my sister not to give him the price he wanted, that he was just ripping us off because we were foreigners. He said it was due to the Spring Festival which all three of us knew was a load of crock. She said not to worry about it and we would just give him the cash and get the hell out of there. We went back to the hostel and rest trying to catch up on our good ZZzz’s. We made our way to the supermarket to get some food for our travels up the mountains we were going to venture to tomorrow. Since this is a much smaller crowd people were more in awe of my size than before which is o.k. by me I don’t mind being starred at by them, I can just look over them lol. I got myself some more meat kabobs which were delicious here and back to the hostel yet again. This time when we entered our dorm we were greeted by this short, cute, half English speaking girl named Amy. She was very polite and we enjoyed the conversation about where we had been and were going to. She too was headed off towards the mountains so we all decided that we would go there tomorrow. Preparing for the trip we jumped into bed early ending our first day in this enjoyable town, Huang Shan.