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Ok so I accidentally deleted this post arghh so will try and re-write what i originally put.
Started the day having breakfast and saying goodbye to the canadian girls before we headed off our separate ways. I'd agreed to meet Daniel (off plane) for a drink and to catch up with what we'd been up to since we landed but I had a bit of time to kill first so went on a hostel computer to book 2 nights stay in xian. I managed to book a really nice hostel for the 13th and 14th which had free pick up from the station which was a help. But for some reason once I'd paid the deposit online, due to my TYPICAL last minute rushing, my brain went a bit backwards and got confused and I emailed the hostel saying I'd made a mistake and that Im actually in xian on the 14th and 15th (WRONG) and could they please pick me up at 6 am.
Feeling all pleased with myself for being so 'organised', I plodded off with my backpacks to meet dan. All was well and we had a coffee and he said he'd managed to find a decent apartment which was good, and then running sliiiightly late I went off to get a taxi. About 5 minutes into a 20 minute taxi ride we hit absolute gridlock, and as another 15 mins passed and the time had reached 3.30, in panic I showed him my ticket which left at 3.52. At this point he went all wide-eyed beepy horned and started driving down the pavement!! But despite his best efforts and me running as fast as I could with a rucksack on both my front and back I missed the train :( Fortuntely, I was able to transfer my ticket onto the next train which luckily was only an hour later, however there were no hard sleeper bunks left and so I had to pay 120 RMB extra for the soft sleeper.
Finally I boarded my train and once I got to my cabin It seemed that I was the only one in there, sweeeet! Just as I got settled though a man popped his head around the corner and explained he had a top bunk next door to share with 2 young kids and so would I mind swapping cabins, I said that was fine so packed up and moved next door. In there were 2 guys already on the bottom bunks and so I climbed to the top. The difference between a hard and soft sleeper is that a hard has 6 bunks, 3 on each side (top middle and bottom) and is down an open corridor whereas soft sleeper is in a lockable cabin and has just 4 bunks with slightly bigger beds.
Once I'd unpacked I started thinking about my hostel in Xi'an and it was then that I realised the mistake id made about my booking. Luckily I'd written down a contact number and so tried calling, but either they couldn't understand me on the phone or my signal was too dodgy on the train and so I had to just leave it. I figured that once I arrived in xi'an I'd either try calling again or find somewhere with wifi to check how to make my own way to the hostel.
After that I just read a bit and put headphones in to drown out the noise of the tv, which by the way for some reason Chinese tv seems to be just a constant stream of adverts?! Iv also noticed that the people here eat a LOT, and the guys in the other bunks had like 4 bags of food with them. I was starving by this point and so ended up cracking open my emergency biscuit that I'd save off my Manchester -> London flight haha!
- comments
kendra yes! emergency biscuits! gotta love 'em.