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Hello all...this could be the last one!
Have now made it to Shanghai and only 2 days left (which we only realised yesterday after getting flight dates wrong..whoopsee! At least we realised.) Can't say i'm hugely excited about getting on a plane again, but I have my two old friends Diazepam and Phenergen with me so it should be ok.
The last time I wrote we were about to go see the terracotta warriors which were pretty cool...will upload photos when we get back! Had some really good streetfood in xian, went back to the same place 3 nights running! Food hygiene did leave a little to be desired, and it was a bit worrying how old the staff seemed to be 15 or under, but the food was soo good (and only cost like 1 pound 60 for a whole meal!good times...) After that we got the sleeper train to Nanjing. Lots of staring ensued! You would think that chinese people had seen a lot of westerners but it would seem not....! People are so friendly though that its not particularly annoying. Had lots of opportunity to practice the chinese! 14 hours later we arrived in Nanjing, and 5 hours of searching later we found our conveniently located hostel! To be honest we didnt really do much in Nanjing apart from go to the nanjing massacre museum.
After Nanjing we stupidly booked seats on a train which left at 5 in the morning to Huangshan, a city at the bottom of a mountain of the same name. As if that wasn't enough we travelled hard seat, on a really old train - which the guide book says not to do - it took 7 hours, but only cost 25 yuan (about 2 pounds), seats were SO uncomfortable though and there was no air con! Started speaking to this nice family across from us, who kept offering horribly foul food at 6am and wouldnt take no for an answer!- like a thousand year old eggs (eggs buried in ammonia and clay for 2 weeks till they go black and brown), spicy mung beans (which i managed to hide discreetly in my bag) and lots of other unintelligible food that I would rather forget. Arrived later to our hostel in Huangshan, and were off the next day to climb the mountain (I know what your thinking- Chloe, climbing a mountain? I know, because I was thinking this too....) Wasn't as bad as i thought it might be though... After about 5 hours leisurely trekking we reached the top and it was really beautiful. Theres a lot of mist so sometimes you'll be standing at the top and not see anything, and the next minute they'll br this huge peak jutting out 20ft away from you. I even got a medal for getting to the top. (I did have to buy this though...) Was gonna get the cable car down,but realised about an hour into walking around the top peak that i was on a MOUNTAIN, and had a minature panic attack, and decided that really there was no way I could possibly get the cable car down....so we walked....alll the way back down again... Even the porters carrying food to the hotels at the top were impressed with us! Legs have only just about recovered today!
The next day we went to visit some small villages near huangshan, which was a nice break away from the hustle and bustle of the cities... And the next day we got a train to Hangzhou, which according to chinese propaganda is 'china's number 1 tourist destination', not really sure we'd agree but there you go... The lake is very beautiful, but its been kind of ruined by all the development thats taken place and was a bit dissapointing...
Now we're in Shanghai, just arrived yesterday, and now off to our fancy hotel where we'll be meeting Jim, hils and neen tonight!! So crazy! All the way over the other side of the world! So today we're gonna explore the sights and tomorrow evening we'll be jetting off back to england :(
Quite sad to go back home, I wanna go to Japan and korea! However dont think the budget will stretch that far and i am very excited about wearing some different clothes!
I guess thats all for now!
Lots of love,
Chloe and Tom
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