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30th April
On Thursday morning I managed to get some cleaning done. I was asked by many students in the afternoon if I could move my class so I changed my 2pm class to another day. I thought this would be fine, but I spoke to Lisa and she told me this wasn't allowed! She told some white lies for me and brushed it over, but I still had to take my second Thursday class.
It didn't work out too badly because skipping the first class gave me time to finish cleaning and packing for Fenghuang. My second class was almost empty, but I was a good teacher and powered though! Hehe, Rich and Kevin just gave up because they had no students so they finished much before me.
After class John came over and the four of us had curry. It didn't go too well, the first curry I made earlier in the year was much more successful but any curry is better than no curry! When we were finished, Rich and Kev went home and John staryed until we had to leave for our train.
We left for the train station around 11pm and after a short wait in the waiting room Kevin joined us. Whilst we were waiting, John met his neighbour and ran of gabbling some Chinese as usual. She was also going to Fenghuang and catching the same train as us.
When we got on the train it was about 1pm, both me and Kevin tried to catch some sleep once things had settled down. John disappeared for a smoke and spent most of the night talking to people in between the carriages. He didn't sleep all night...
The next morning we arrived in Jishou about an hour after Mat and Amelia, they were waiting for us when we got off the train. We all went and got on the bus for Fenghuang and managed to get another 2 hours sleep.
When we arrived in Fenghuang it was RAINING. Heavily. We took some shelter under a nearby stall with a holy plastic sheet for a roof and tried to work out how to get into town. We caught another shuttle bus into the centre of the town and then we set Amelia on a mission to find us a cheaper hotel. We had already booked a hotel but it was pretty expensive so we were hoping some Chinese bargaining would come in useful. After a lot of waiting around and confusion, we finally decided to follow one guy to his hotel and see if we liked it. It was about a 10 minute walk down by the river in the old town. When we arrived the hotel looked ok, but they wanted us to pay for the 3 rooms for 2 nights all up front. We didn't have that much cash on us so more Chinese discussions continued, in true Chinese style for about 20 minutes until Kevin joined in and sorted things out. It made things so much easier having someone with western attitudes speaking Chinese!
Once we'd come to a decision to pay for some rooms and some deposits (since Steve and Keri would pay for their room when they arrived) we went for a walk to find Kevin's hostel. He had decided to try to book something cheaper since he was by himself. Luckily it had stopped raining. After exploring for a while we managed to find the hostel, only to find out they were fully booked and Kevin's booking had never got through. This caused us some headaches, we decided to go back to our hotel and try to do a deal on a room there. On our way we met John's neighbour again and they did some Chinese chin-wagging. When we got back to the hotel, some more Chinese discussion ensued, me and Mat just stood around like spare parts. After a while Kevin disappeared to the back of the hotel. When he came back he's sorted out a room. He was paying super discount rates to stay in the hotel owner's kid's room. Was a little strange, but ended up working out quite well!
We then had the issue of trying to work out how to get home! Mat and Amelia had already bought some bus tickets, Keri and Steve had got their train tickets and were on the bus from Jishou to us, but we still had to decide how to get to Yiyang. Eventually we found a travel agency that sold train tickets. John was stuck on the idea of going on a train, and the company provided a "shuttle bus" to the train station at 8am which gave us enough time to catch our train so we decided to go with the 10:30am train back on Sunday morning.
After we reserved our tickets we /then had to go on a hunt for a cash machine and some towels since no-one had remembered any. We walked into the modern town, got some money, bought some very orange towels, and then walked back to the old town to meet Keri and Steve who were just arriving. Once we'd got everyone together, we dropped off the newcomer's bags and then decided to find somewhere for lunch, it had been a very busy morning!
We walked along the river and found a restaurant for lunch. After eating I decided to go and have a sleep, whilst some people went on a raft on the river.
Later that evening, me and John met up with Mat and Amelia and did some shopping next to the river. After a while the others joined us and we decided to go into the new town for tea. We took a taxi to the town centre and had a nice meal in a pretty empty restaurant. Out came the baijiu and on our walk back to the hotel we bought some beers and spent the night drinking and chatting.
On Saturday morning we all woke up around 10am and got some breakfast. After a /lot of Chinese negotiating we hired a minibus to take us to the countryside. When we arrived we had a toilet stop which caused much amusement since the no-doored Chinese toilets doubled up as a pig sty! We then had a fairly rubbish lunch at the only café set up for tourists before starting our walk.
The walk through the gorge was very pretty, but very muddy! We walked through a forest next to a stream and past some waterfalls. It was really enjoyable until we came to a section where we had to walk down the side of a cliff, on some bits of metal stuck into the rock with wooden steps, under the dripping water. I do science me. I know that water makes metal go rusty and break and wood go rotten and break! So I wasn't happy and was a bit of a nervous wreck by the time we got to the bottom. We continued for about another 15 minutes, climbed a hill and stopped to admire the view.
Just as I had calmed down, I was informed we had to go BACK. The way we came. I really wasn't happy and I didn't really talk to anyone, just went for it, climbed back up the stupid cliff face and rested at the top waiting for everyone else. This is China…eh!
Once we finished the rest of the walk, we had a rest back at the start and had some ice creams, yum yum. We then found our driver and started back to Fenghuang. On the way we stopped next to the South Great Wall to clean our shoes and take some pictures. I had never heard of the South Great Wall before, but apparently it was real, and not just made up for tourists.
Back in Fenghuang we all got clean then went out for a nice meal in the old town. The town was very pretty at night and it had just about stopped raining so we were able to go shopping and buy some souvenirs.
The next morning I got up early with John and Kevin, grabbed some noodles for breakfast and caught the shuttle bus back to Jishou. In Jishou we had about an hour to wait before the train so Kevin went in search of internet and me and John found a Milo so I could have some coffee! It was fantastic, I had a Belgian waffle as a second breakfast and I realised how much I wasn't getting used to Chilli noodles in the morning!
We caught the train back and I helped John practice his English on the train, DOG DUCK DUG! When we got back to Yiyang, Kev went straight back to Campus and me and John went to a café near to the park to have tea. After tea I went home and had a bit of a rest then I caught up with Rich to have some BBQ and ended up having quite a late night.
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