Leaving Beijing and tea with the Chinese

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Day 38 - Wednesday 8th October. Couldn't sleep so got up early for me at 9.30am Got showered and packed as we had to check out by midday. Then wandered out to find some aspirin for my head. Hot today. I came back and before anyone else was up just had time to order a jumbo breakfast. I didn't intend on spending any money today but that soon changed. I was bored so decided to wander off on my own. Decided to listen to my ipod but my earphones had broken. So i headed to the shopping centre. I was looking for a shop minding my own business when 2 Chinese students approached me asking if i was english. We'd been warned of this previously as there are often scams as they trick you into following them somewhere and paying for everything and if you don't they threaten to call the police. But I said yes, and they asked if they could chat to me to practice their own english. I said 'of course, as long as you help me buy some new earphones. So me, Li and Lizzie went shopping together. This didn't take long so afterwards, the girls suggested we go for tea. So we found a very expensive tearoom and drank Jasmine tea, red wine and beer (all at the same time!!). During this time i learnt about the history of their lives and they learnt mine. We talked about the future and i made the mistake of asking how many kids they were going to have! Oops. Then we switched emails and phone numbers and i was made to promise that i'd be in touch. I invited them to my birthday party next week but i doubt they'll come. We all paid our own share and then we went our seperate ways. How bizarre!

By the time i got back to the hostel it was getting late. Me, Nance and Brad went for one last cheap chinese as Brad was flying out that evening, then we all made our way to the train station. It's quite a walk so we decided to get the underground. This was almost a mistake as it was the end of rush hour and it proved tricky trying to negotiate the crowds with our huge backpacks. But we made it to the station with half an hour to spare.

The train from Beijing to Shanghai was awful. We left at 7.32pm but only had seats as the rest of the train was fully booked. I found boredom more of a problem than not being able to sleep. You couldn't make much out of the window except i remember going through quite a lot of industrial towns. Our carriage seemed to have quite a few bugs on it, and one chinese guy who didn't know how to do anything quietly. We finally rolled in at 7am (Day 39) and we were all shattered, with nobody getting more than a couple of hours sleep. First thing that greeted us was a lot of smog. This is more how i expected Beijing to be.

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Comments

[v]

U pulled! About time