(I know, I put way too much detail into these blog
posts. This is where I probably should
apologize for that but I am not going to.
If you don’t make it to the end or just end up skimming it, I don’t
care. These posts are more for me than
anyone else and I want to remember the details.)
I am still not use to saying that I live in China. It is mind blowing and it doesn’t seem
real. People will ask us if we are
traveling and we have to stop ourselves and think about it. No, we actually live here. As we walk around the streets with our
cameras around our neck we just say to ourselves, “I am not a tourist, I live
here!” Alright, so maybe we aren’t
really out of our “tourist’ stage… I don’t
know if I will ever be.
It is funny what little things make you happy when you
aren’t living in the comfort of America anymore. The other day we were on our way home from
the bakery that is right down the road from our apartment and we met another
foreigner! The best part is that he
lives in Guiyang too, right next to us.
You could see the shock on all of our faces. You really just don’t see many foreigner’s in
Guiyang and there is an instant friendship when you do. It is awesome. We happily exchanged numbers and agreed to
let him show us around the city when we got back from our trip.
Yes, I did say trip.
I know, isn’t this whole China thing a big 5 month long trip? It sure is but we live in China so when we go
to another city we can call it a vacation or a trip. We found out that our school doesn’t start
until March 3rd. We decided
that since we had the time we better take advantage of it and go see more of
China. That is exactly what we are
doing. We got our liaison to help us
book a train. I was surprised to find
out that all of the places that we had originally planned we would go (and yes,
we did have a couple back up plans) were all full. So we pulled up a weather map of all of China
and picked the warmest city. Weren’t you
taught that that is the way to plan a trip?
Well, that is exactly what we did! It
turns out that Kunming in the Yunnan province is the warmest city in China
right now.
Kunming is actually considered the “spring city” of
China. After being freezing in Beijing
and still pretty cold in Guiyang, we were stoked for this vacation. We spent the next couple of days planning and
preparing for this big trip of ours.
Traveling through China… could we really do this?? Well, soon we would find out. We got online and booked a hostel. That seemed to go smoothly. I made a Word document full of maps, the address,
and directions on how to get to the hostel from the train station, and other
random things that I thought we might need.
Our adventure started on Monday the 17th before
we actually even left Guiyang. Our
friends were over using our internet because theirs is not working. While they were over we decided that we would
run down the street and grab a bite to eat before we made our journey to the
train station. Before we left I looked
at Shelby and asked her if she thought we needed our key. We both agreed that we didn’t need it because
Will and Abby would still be there when we got back. Well, turns out they left before we got home
and they locked the door. Oops. We had an hour before we needed to leave to
get to the train station. We called Nicole,
our liaison, to see if she had a spare key.
I am sure this is when she started to worry about us traveling through
China alone. We couldn’t even keep track
of our own key. Luckily she had a spare
key and we met her up at the school to get it from her. Never will I ever leave my apartment without
a key again.
We finally made it to the train station, with no surprises
and without getting lost, I might add. I
don’t know what I was thinking the train station would be like but it was
crazy. It was a big organized mess. Okay, maybe it wasn’t so organized. Good thing we had plenty of time, I am
talking about four hours, before our train actually left. We had the time to stand in lines we didn’t
know if we were supposed to be in or not.
We stood in one line for what seemed like forever. I was told that if I just hand the person
behind the window my passport, they would know what to do from there. That is exactly what I did. The lady behind the window started spitting
Chinese words off of her tongue like I would know what she was saying. I guess that is my own fault though. I was the one who came to China and can only
count to ten in Chinese. Counting to ten
can only get you so far… I try to
communicate to her that I already bought my ticket and that I just need to pick
it up. I hand her my phone with the
text, that I think was the confirmation number, but who knows because it was
all in Chinese. She finally seemed to
understand and handed me my ticket.
Yes! Another obstacle down and a
lot more to go… Well, turns outs she
actually gave us our ticket to come home from Kunming. So there I went to stand in line again… This
time while I was in line a worker came up to me and said something really fast
in Chinese and then motioned me to follow him.
Is it bad that I do whatever the Chinese people tell me to do even when
I have no idea what they are saying?? It
has worked so far but it might get me into some trouble someday. Well, he led me over to a different line to
stand in. When I got to the window
another worker randomly showed up at my side.
Thankfully, she knew a little bit of English and I was able to get the
correct ticket.
After going through the counterproductive security at the
train station we were in the freezing cold and very dirty train station. We still had about four hours before our
train left. So we found a table and
pulled out a deck of cards. Who knew that
two American’s playing cards in a train station would bring such a crowd? It was insane and it made me nervous! Finally it was about time for us to get on our
train. This is when we found out that
our train was delayed two and a half hours.
We were already freezing and tired.
We just wanted to get on the train.
We had no clue what line we were supposed to be in but after many people
pointing us in different directions we finally found someone who was getting on
the same train as we were. You better
believe that this lady did not leave our sight.
At around 10:30pm we finally were able to get on our
train. We were on hard sleepers hoping
that we could get some sleep that night.
After making a fool out of myself, trying to get myself on the tiny
middle bunk, we were settled in for the night.
A guy that we met in the station told us that the train would be “hot”. I was so looking forward to that heat but he
was dead wrong. It was freezing. I covered myself up with the blanket on the
bed that I am sure hasn’t been washed in who knows when. I would say that I slept pretty terrible but
it was fine I was going to Kunming! Note
to everyone traveling via trains in China, when someone comes and pounds on
your bed it means that your stop is next.
We got off the train and after a few tries and some help; we found the
beloved bus 64. The funny thing about
this is that we tried to get on the bus on the wrong side of the road and we
were rejected. Then once we got over to
the other side of the road, the doors to bus 64 were already shut. I tried knocking on them hoping that the bus
driver would open the door for two hopeless Americans. Nope, the bus driver had no pity on us. We stood there in the rain, but it was warm,
waiting for another bus to come by. We
were able to make it to our hostel with the help of a kind bus driver telling
us where to get off and with the help of a nice man pointing us into the
direction of our hostel. We checked in
and crashed for a couple of hours to regain energy for the day.
I woke up feeling very hangry. Yes, hungry and angry. It is a real thing and I apologize to Shelby
because she had to deal with me. I
needed food and I needed to get out of our room. Side note… This hostel we are staying is so
nice! I was under the impression that
hostels were dumpy but the environment and vibe of this hostel is the
best! I would recommend it to all of you
out there who are planning a vacation to Kunming. It is called Cloudland. And if you aren’t planning a trip to Kunming,
I suggest you should. You won’t regret
it… We got out and ate some dumplings
and found a market to walk around. This
city is beautiful! Everything about it
is awesome. I have fallen in love with
Kunming and it has only been the first day.
On our way home from lunch we stopped at a park right by our
hostel. This is the best park ever. There were a couple groups of old people
dancing and playing music. It was so
cool. Of course, we jumped in and
started dancing with the old men and we joined the dancing circle. It was the best thing I have done in a long
time. Everyone crowded around to watch
two white girls try to dance with the native.
It was awesome and ridiculously embarrassing at the same time.
By the time we got done dancing it was raining pretty hard
so we decided to come back to the hostel to figure out what we were going to do
the next week. We grabbed our computers
and headed down to the common area so hopefully meet some other people who
could maybe tell us what to do around here.
Well, I am happy to announce that our plan worked! We have met some awesome foreigners and we
went to dinner with a group of about 11 of us.
Most of them were from the states and they are also here teaching
English. One girl is from England and
she just came over here to travel and study Chinese for a little bit. It was so fun to be with people who spoke
English. This whole backpacking through
China thing is the coolest thing ever. I
recommend it.
Before I forget… I am happy to report that I packed for a
week in a little backpack. I also slept
on a bed with bedding on it that, I am sure, hasn’t been washed in weeks. This living in China thing is changing
me. For the better or for the worse, I
am not sure yet. I will let you be the
judge of that.
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