DAY 8

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Only been here a week and it seems like ages, hope everything is OK back at work (send that price book to the printers Tim!). Today we were off to Nanjing with or trusty guides Kwan and Dana and were catching the train from the city at 8.25am. We were up and checking out at 7 to catch our own taxi to the train station - just showed the guy our tickets and he got the idea. Taxis are really cheap here and they are so easy as long as you can tell them were you want to go! Minimum charge is 11RMB and that gets you about 5km and to get to the train station was 16RMB (about $NZ3.30) and they’re everywhere, you just flag one down and he stops. Anyway, I digress, we got to the train station with plenty of time despite the traffic and managed to find the correct waiting lounge before Dana found us, all quite logical really. I was most impressed with the train, it was a modern pointy one that went fast enough for them to display the speed at the front of the carriage. I did see other, older trains on the tracks as well, including some sleeper trains - they are going to be the ones we have for the Trans-Mongolian trip. I wrote the next bit while on the train.

TRAIN TO NANJING

I’m sitting on the train from Hangzhou to Nanjing (Hangzhou, Jiaxing, Shanghai, Shuzhou, Wuxi, Zhenjiang, Nanjing) watching the country whiz by at about 140km/hr. It’s a 4hr trip and the electric, air-conditioned train is very comfortable with about 16 carriages and not many people. We’re in the front carriage and there’s only about 8 people here - and four of them are us! I’ve noticed more new high-rise and some low-rise housing being built.. It all seems very haphazard and looking at people going about their daily jobs you begin to understand the logistics of employing 2 billion people. There are a lot of people doing seemingly mundane and simple jobs such as sweeping the side of the highway with nothing more than a rough straw broom, in the city there are people picking up rubbish with bamboo tongs, others removing recycling from the bins. I heard on the news that the average salary in China is just over 6000RMB per year ($NZ1200), that makes for a lot of poor people that have to live in very low rent housing, which is very easy to see. Kwan mentioned the other day that waiters are on about 1000RMB per month, that’s double the average but they would have to live in the city.
I spoke too soon, we just arrived at Shanghai and took on a heap of passengers! Still, the seats are big and comfy enough anyway……Not to worry, most of them got off at Shuzhou, lots of space again. Some of the countryside now doesn’t look too bad between the industrial townships, water still looks bad though. Arrived in Nanjing to a little bit of blue sky and a very warm breeze - ie. Sauna. The internet told me than Nanjing was one of 4 cities in China with ‘furnace like winds’ - I see why. Kwan’s cousin picked us up, took us to the hotel, then out to lunch. The food is a little different here, more veggies on the menu I think, had a great lunch. Back to the hotel for a chill out - the aircon works a treat here. Chatted with Simon and Jen on MSN until it was time to eat again (we could have easily skipped dinner!) We have decided that we simply can’t be bothered with any fish or fowl as it’s just so hard getting through all those bones! (not that either of us has touched any chicken yet anyway) That’s about all for today - off to bed.

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Photos

All aboard
Flash train, and spot on time too!

New Highrise
One of many building projects

Hosing Estate
These ones actually don't look to bad from the photo

Wuxi Station
The station looked a little in need of a makeover

??
Can't remember what this was, coal or gravel depot. (China has heaps of coal) New highrise in background