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15th November 2008
We had been asked by the hostel in Wuhan if we would accompany some government official so he could practice his English and he'd show us around the city. We agreed and planned to leave at 12noon so got up a bit earlier to pick up our return train tickets before we had to meet them.
At 8:45am we were told they were coming at 9am! Werushed around and were ready kind of by 9:30am, and the hostel had told them we would need to get our train tickets.
The people we spent the day with were a Law lecturer at Wuhan University called Pen, who was also a law maker for the province, and his son Allen. They had spent the previous academic year in Seattle on a Fullbright exchange and they both had very good English, it was nice to be able to talk to someone.
We went with them to the countryside first to have some lunch, it was quite a long drive. When we arrived we had a look around, we stopped by a lake and there was a guy preparing some fish for lunch in a bowl. We went for a walk around the rest of the village, it was nice to see some real rural China.
The village was where Peng grew up and he had a lot of family around, it was called Liuguanti. Elisha was amazed at the buffalo (city girl - I'm not even sure she'd seen a cow before) and she was excited about the new born baby but did eventually give it back to the parents. We also saw people drying out cotton from cotton plants and some very strange looking chickens. Elisha asked Allen how people know which chickens were theirs, since they were very free range and running around all over the place. He said "the chicken is like part of the family, at night it just goes home"!
Lunch was lovely, it was quite similar to Hunan food but some dishes were a bit different so it was nice for a change. There wasn't very much in the way of vegetables so I had to branch out to fish for the day, I wasn't brave enough to pick the insides out of crabs though. There was a little girl who was really shy with us but was quite bossy with her granddad, and ate her way through lots of crabs.
After lunch, we found a toilet (I wasn't brave enough to use the no-doored hole in the ground), were given lots of oranges that a guy had picked off a tree, then we were back on the road.
We headed for Jayu County. On the way we stopped and bought some sugarcane. Peng bought us one stick each then we were given a whole carrier bag of it! That's a lot of sugar cane…
When we arrived at Jayu, we went to Peng's parents apartment to "have a rest" (very popular Chinese past time). We then went into town and had a walk by the lake. We went with Allen whilst Peng spoke to his brothers and we went on a boat trip around the lake for 30RMB.
After the boat ride we met an old man with blue eyes who Elisha was fascinated with. He must have thought she was nuts because she wanted to take his picture, but he insisted on changing his wellingtons for smart shoes and putting on a jacket before posing on his boat.
We went to meet Peng in the restaurant and we had a very nice meal although mine was mainly cauliflower as I'd had enough meat for one day.
It was then a long 2 hour drive back to Wuhan, and I'm sure Peng must've had too much baijou, because he was driving like a nutcase once we were back in the city. Driving the wrong way across a major junction, "it's ok, I make the laws, it's ok hehe". We met one of his friends who had bought us out train tickets then we went back to the hostel, exchanged contact information, and said goodbye to our new friends.
In hindsight it was a very bizarre day, but we were also very lucky to have the experience.
In the hostel that evening, we joined an Australian couple who were watching Bangkok Dangerous. The movie was so bad I didn't really bother watching it but I ate my Chinese style chips we had from the restaurant with Peng (chips and chillis) and chatted to the couple. They were travelling around Asia with their two daughters aged 2 and 4, they must have been very brave. They'd been to a lot of places and it was interesting to hear how they were getting on. They'd also considered teaching in China so they were asking how we were finding our stay.
The following morning we had a slow lazy start. We weren't catching our train until 6:45pm so we had the day to explore the city.I braved the coooooold shower then got dressed quickly and enjoyed the coffee and western breakfast at the hostel! For the second time in two days I'd had toast and margarine!!!!
We checked out of the hostel about 11:30am then took a bus to the Yellow Crane Pavilion. We walked around the market next to it, then decided to pay the 50RMB entrance fee, even though it was expensive, because we didn't have much else to do.
Like most things in China, a long time ago there had been a Yellow Crane Pavilion and it had been knocked down and rebuilt so many times it was only maybe 100 years old. This is one thing we've realised about this country, there doesn't seem to be much authenticity, except for the scenery!
Either way, the pavilion was interesting and there were lots of little markets around the place to buy jewellery and memorabilia. Elisha bought a communist propaganda poster.
When we had finished in the pavilion we had a walk over the Yangtzi river. It was very noisy and dirty, and the air was smoggy so we couldn't really see much. I'm not really selling this city am I?
After a failed attempt to catch a bus to a temple we got in a taxi. We decided to get some lunch before we went inside. We found a nice little café off the main street that was not too expensive, but the menu was all in Chinese with no pictures. I'm used to this because it's like that all the time in Yiyang, and I had my little brown book at the ready, but Elisha had never experienced this before! She'd only ever been out with Chinese people, or to somewhere with pictures!
We then walked back to the temple and had a look around. It was not clear where tourists were allowed, especially since people kept inviting us into the places where we weren't supposed to go, but we saw the food hall and Elisha had a wander around the living quarters.
When we were finished we decided to head back to the hostel a bit early to pick up our bags and maybe grab some food. It's a good job we did decide to go back early since we had major problems getting back!
First we tried to catch a taxi, but after some confusion we realised only taxis with even number plates could cross the bridge, and we couldn't find any! We decided to catch the bus over the river instead and for a really stupid 1.8RMB (why 8?!) we headed back towards the Yellow Crane Pavilion. Stupidly, we missed the stop (I should've listened to Elisha and got off earlier even though we couldn't see it) and the bus just kept going! It was a long time until it came to another stop and we had no idea where we were! We got off as soon as we could and tried to flag down a taxi. After a lot of walking around and looking at monkey on leads, we finally managed to get a taxi.
When we arrived at the hostel Elisha stayed with the taxi and I ran to get the bags. When I got back to the main road, the taxi had gone (Elisha was still there), apparently he couldn't turn around, but we had little trouble getting a new one so it was ok.
We made it to the train station with quite a bit of time to spare. We went through the ticket control and bag scanning thing and sat down to wait. It was a very fancy new train station.
Our train was delayed by half an hour. When it finally arrived we were at the back of the surges of people trying to get on, we had seat reservations though so we weren't in a hurry. On the way onto the train Elisha got pushed by a woman and knocker her off the train, so the woman's husband hit Elisha, it wasn't had but she was not happy. On the train, a ticket guy came to check tickets and only wanted to see ours…
I slept most of the train journey. When we were getting close to Yueyang (Elisha's stop) I started to hear "WEI! WEI!" (Chinese for "hi" I think). I assumed no-one was talking to us because everyone knows enough English to yell "Helloooo" at us on the street but eventually I heard someone else say hello and we woke up. The very grumpy train conducter shouted "YUEYANG!" and looked at us then walked off.
Elisha got off at the next stop, at the apparent confusion to everyone else on the train, I didn't, and the guy came to check my ticket, again.
I then slept the remaining few hours and it didn't seem to take that long. At Yiyang lots of people got off the train, I didn't realise so many people lived in Yiyang!
When I tried to get a taxi home, I know it should be no more than 15RMB. Some taxi driver was trying to make me pay 30RMB! I was walking off when a young guy approached me. He had just got off my train and recognised me from a picture (it's not hard, there's not many people in the area who look like me…). He was a student at the university and was going back to the same place as me so I stuck with him and he helped me with the taxis. He managed to get it for 10RMB each, which was still more expensive than last time but much cheaper than 30RMB on my own!
When I got home I had a quick internet update, looked through the pictures then got some sleep ready for my 8am class.
Monday passed quite uneventfully. On Tuesday I had a catch up class in the morning then I went into town with Lisa. I had lost my bank card and it turns out the easiest way to get a new one is to just open a new account! So she helped me do this and took me to a few shops before going to do some other things with her friend.
I decided not to head straight back to campus but I had a walk around the shops. I bought a hat, scarf and hat from one shop, some brown bread from a bakery (wooo!) and a smart winter coat from a shop a bit further down the road.
After I spent all my money I got on a bus back to campus and met Rich at the gate to go to the canteen. We ate and then went to the shop on the way back and I bought some coffee and slippers (there's a theme here, I was feeling cold!).
On Wednesday my classes were easy. I watched a film with my first class then movie trailers with my second class. Afterwards me and Richard were going to get train tickets to visit Ruth and Martin in Huaihua but we eventually decided not to go because it would be 14 hours on the train in total and we'd only be there for one day.
Instead we took the bus into town and decided to go and visit the Olympic Park. We got there and it was all closed, I don't know why since I'd been past at the same time the week before and it was open! We walked around a little bit, had a look in a very fancy hotel (cheapest rooms were 600RMB a night!) and puzzled over all of the people painting the trees white.
On the way back we stopped to buy a heater (primary reason for going into town). We couldn't find a fan heater, but we were offered a basic cheap normal one for 39RMB. After walking off we managed to get it for 30RMB which was good enough and we were very proud of our bargaining!
Back at home I made myself and egg mayo sandwich for tea :D and then had an early night.
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