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Published: October 27th 2010
.................go round and round and round and round and round and round and round!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
after a long trip to Xi'an, we thought it would be a good idea to have a few drinks and try and mingle with...anyone.
we went down to the hostel bar, bought ourselves a BOTTLE of 'happy face' vodka. mmmmmmm. it tasted of potatoes. after a couple of them and continuous rhianna songs we decided to check out bar street, but some american fella told us bar street was crap and the bar in the hostel next door was the better option. so we went there.
he was right it was pretty busy, lots of different types of people there and decent music that wasnt on repeat. Hayley met a 'Canadian' guy from Colorado, America, we also bumped into the students we met on the train, an angry man from Dublin who didnt particularly like China, John from Oxford, Weird bulgarian guy, even more weird 'i want to take a picture of you' guy, Charly from liveeeerpooool and tall guy who made Hayley get on his shoulders and shout to all his friends 'I LOVE XI'AN!!!!!!' to win a bet. quite shocked she did it, maybe theres something in the happy vodka.
the next day we went to the Terracotta Army, it was good and a lot bigger than we thought it was going to be. we had a tour guide called 'dave', although were not sure that was his real name. another bad clothes decision day, it decided to rain pretty heavily and we had left our jumpers and pac a macs at the hostel....hayley was wearing flip flops again. we bumped into Oxford John who told us he was taking a two hour flight to Shanghai the next day (you'll see the relevance later). after the Terracotta Army Dave took us to a local restaurant where we had a group lunch between 7 of us, the food kept coming it was unbelievable, there was about 10 massive dishes between us all and it only cost about 3 quid each! bargain! after our successful chinese food attempt, our dorm mate Meytal told us about a local dumpling stall where you could go for breakfast. she took us there on our last morning, they were only 15p each and they were really nice but filling and a bit weird to have first thing in the morning. later that afternoon we said goodbye to Meytal and began the next journey from hell.
we unsuccessfully flagged down a taxi so had to get on the local bus with 3 extremely large rucksacks. that was fun....although we have decided we hate most taxis and public transport is the way forward!! it cost us 10p to the bus station. ohhhh the bus station. i know we have sounded pretty negative about some things but no exaggeration it was DIRTY!!! unfortunately this was also a reflection of the buses that left this station.
and so we boarded the bus and began the '17 hour' journey from Xi'an to Shanghai. before we were able to get on though, we had to take our shoes off and put them in a bag. the guy tried to show us where we were sitting/lying but he just managed to confuse us even more. luckily we had Maggie who looked at our tickets and showed us where to go. she too was taking the journey from hell!! to explain the bus...it was 3 rows of THIN bunks going all the way to the back and 1 VERY smelly toilet. your feet went under the hollow plastic pillow of the person in front of you and you were supplied with a small bean bag (pillow) and a blanket which was supposed to keep us warm. mixed reviews on the cleanliness...Danielle and Charlotte's were ok but Hayley had mould, a yellow stained sheet and chewing gum...which is still stuck to her pants!!! As the hours went by we got used to the standards (or ours just dropped A LOT) but the smell of wee from the toilet continued to get worse!!!!! we can't describe it all we just thought we would give you a glimpse into the journey...oh and the '17 hours' turned into 20!!!!!!!
Once in Shanghai we had a nightmare trying to find the right ticket office to buy tickets for Hong Kong but with the help of Maggie and her genius little phrase book we managed to do it! We then headed to our hostel which is quite nice...more like a hotel with free breakfast....GET IN!!! Our first full day in Shanghai we got to grips with another subway system and headed to the French Concession. it was a really nice part of Shanghai and we spent most of the day walking around it in the sunshine! we visited a museum and a park and on the way home went to Jing'an Temple which is in the middle of a lot of high rise buildings and shopping centres. a real mix of past and present. got cheapo noodles for tea (40p for a big pot) and now we are back at the hostle debating on what to do tonight..................
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tracey
non-member comment
harry potter reference
the bus sounds like the night bus off Harry Potter, I am loving it... This blog post really made me laugh, may just be my favourite yet...and the cheap food sounds awesome