''An obstacle is often a stepping stone'' - Prescott

The two boys (Rob and Dan) arrived dramatically squashed into a tuctuc, with far too much luggage than the vehicle could hold, limbs sticking out of each possible gap it could. We huddled them under our umbrellas in the rain and setted of to give them a tour of our place. Of course they were impressed by our palace and burst down in tears immediatly, wishing they could live with us .... Our waiban soon treated them to a banquet and we all managed to escape KTV, preparing an early night for our 5am rising. When we got up, we lugged our suitcase into the car and headed off to the train station, stopping for breakfast on the way. Me and the 2 boys fancied some baozi but of course, Catherine ordered noodles for us all. The 10 minutes of us grumbling through our appropriate breakfast food were pleasant for Catherine who, for someone that wanted the noodles, ate the least of us all. The train journey was only 4 hours long (very short for the train journeys we do) and we managed to get a booth between the four of us, allowing us lots of room for our luggage and my feet :) The train journey was made better when a little chinese baby popped her head over the booth and i grew a love for her. I entertained her for most of the trip with my 'pika boos' and me and Dan adopted her as our chinese daughter, named 'Cheeky'. Catherine and Rob returned to their ipods as Cheeky didnt seem best pleased when they attempted to play with her.

In not much time we arrived at Nanchang and bid our fairwells to Cheeky. The arrival was soon traumatised when Dan had a pleasant toilet experience involving his nose bleeding everywhere over a newly cleaned toilet cubicle, resulting in me having to slap him on the back of his neck with water to 'help stop it'. The morning continued with us queueing for over 3 hours just to buy our train tickets to Xi'an. We firstly (well i say we, Rob and Catherine) got in the wrong queue and the lady serving us decided to go on her half hour break just before we got to the front, leaving us abandoned, noone to cover her break. When we were then pointed to the correct queue we were put inside a warehouse of crowds of people 'queueing' in boiling heat. We decided to take breaks in twos to replenish our oxygen supplies but soon got to the front and got our tickets. Then it was time for pizza...

Us all doing the pizza hut dance and Catherines poor drawing of a pizza didn't get us much help to find the rumoured pizza hut in Nanchang. When we were directed to a taxi he managed to take us to a papa johns were i possibly had the best pizza i've had. Not because it tasted amazing (which it did) but because i've missed good English (well it's italian) food. Had my good old bbq chicken pizza, saving my left overs for the breakfast on the train the next day :) The restaurant was like a zoo for westerners though. Big glass windows around the building and every westerner in Nanchang enjoying their lunch in here. We bumped into a couple of foreign students, introducing ourselves to them and meeting a very steriotypical fat, annoying American man (I have nothing against Americans, i met a nice on in Lanzhou). My pizza was slightly ruined when i visited the toilet to discover why my legs had become itchy, to find a total count of 19 bites all over my legs .. WHAT! With no sympathy from anyone it was shopping time! We headed to the wal-mart next door and were fascinated when we came across western products (things we care so little about) like rollerblades, deodrant and razors .. oh its a hard life. There was a rumoured h&m in Nanchang too which i showed excitement for but the boys, wanting to find a book store, won and we went to possibly the biggest looking one there was. Afterwards we decided to head to the IMax cinema to watch women in black in English. Firstly, they cut out some parts of the films which me and Dan noticed and weren't chuffed about. Secondary, Chinese people do not know how to behave in the cinema. Standing up, talking, on their phones etc.. again, wasn't impressed. But overall the film was good and still scared me, but of course, Rob, being the lad he is, was not feared by a silly film like that :P The day came to a close with us heading to McDonalds to meet 2 of the other Jiangxi volunteers, Matt and Ned, who had spent the whole day moving from one fast food restaurant to the next until they were out of money. We yanked them from McDonalds and headed for the train station with our bags, running to the front of the queue to ensure we got a place to put our rather large suitcase and tucking into bed.

My nights sleep was awful, rattling in the middle bunk, a single bed that was just long and wide enough for me. The train would occassionaly suddenly stop then go again, throwing me about in my bed and waking me from my snooze. When i did finally get to sleep i wa awoken at around 7am by chinese music blasting through the cabins, thanks for the wakening guys! My planned lie in was ruined and we all woke up and sorted ourself out for the next 20 hours on the train (a total journey of 32 hours). We gathered the rest of the Jiangxi volunteers, 8 of us in all, and sat on our two bottom bunks playing cards, writing letters, playing games, watching films and of course, sleeping.. oh throw in some eating in there too. My second night sleep was nice, probably from the lack of sleep i had before and when we woke at 6am, ready to get of the train, my body was refulled. I looked out my window expecting to see the beautiful view of Lanzhou.. but .. oh wait.. there's a mucky river, there's hills and hills of just dry land and the odd power plant thrown in there. It was clear that the description of Lanzhou being one of the most polluted cities in the world was true. Soon enough we came to a stop and to add to the misery of Lanzhou it was raining. We huddled into the nearest KFC, i ordered my first coffee since i have been here (it was heaven) and waited the arrival of some Gansu volunteers ....

P.S. After reading Dan's blog i discovered something hilarious that happened in Nanchang that i left out. When in wall-mart we discovered some gene condoms. All fascinated by it and wondering what the hell they could be. We wondered for ages, passing the thought that they were made of jeans. It wasn't until the genius Rob said 'maybe they don't have ends on it'. The poor boy noticed what he said as soon as the words came out but it was too late.. Me and Dan were in fits, slapping our legs and holding each other up whilst we laughed lots! What a silly silly silly boy! Next.. we were driving along in the taxi when Cat shouted 'OMG guys i just saw a sign that said no trumpets' .. we were all very confused about this but thought hey, its china. Then another sign appeared 'Look guys there it is again' .. OH DEAR. The sign was a picture of a horn with a cross through it. Again, all of us in fits about what Cat had said, it was clearly a horn and just meant you couldn't beep down the road.. dear God girl! Unfortunately the worst story comes from me. Whilst waiting in the cinema for our film i whilsted at Rob to get his attention in which a repetition on my whistle copied me from somewhere. I looked around, puzzled, trying to work out who did it. So i whilsted again, no one. I asked Dan and Cat to listen out, but i still didn't know who was doing it, i changed the tune, looked around, but couldnt work it out. I was a little freaked out but confused as hell. After one whistle i saw Dan whistle it.. 'hang on' i said, 'you whilsted that time'. He said, 'yes, just the once'. 'Ok' i said, and continued to whisle. The pair of them couldn't hold it in much longer and were soon in fits when i realised it was Dan all along.. i couldn't believe i had been that stupid.. it was a low..