Sometimes miracles do work out, and turns out me and Cat managed to bag ourselves an extra week off, just before Chengdu, because of exams.. all falling beautifully into place. We headed off on our train to visit our friends Pete and Henry's project in Gansu, a much poorer province and 18hours on the train. It was luckily a very easy train journey, not too much snooring from the Chinese and we made some cool chinese friends who were keen to chat with us throughout the journey. Arriving in Gansu was much different to Jiangxi. No more grass, lots of dust and sand and the air felt much dryer than in our hometown. We then took a bus ride out of Xi'an to arrive at the boys place .. Nin xian. It was so great to see the two boys after a few months, last seeing them during spring festival travelling. We chilled back at their place, caught up on game of thrones and slept. I must add though that, yes, i do understand you live in a dusty region but boy, i have never seen a dirtier house haha. Lots of dust, and Pete even had a blanket called 'smelly blanket'. It turns out the boys haven't cleaned their sheets all year too and had a very tall pile of washing.. oh and their shower was stone cold. I did some washing for Pete though before we left, i couldn't deal with the huge pile in his room which he told me had been their for many days! The next day it was boiling hot though and the boys had to teach, so me and Cat spent a whole 10minutes looking around their town, yes it took that long, it is tiny! It was much more modern than Chongren and cleaner but so much smaller, having only one major supermarket.. although, i must add, it did sell popcorn and mayonaise, much more than we have in all our Chongren supermarkets!! We watched a lesson each of the boys, stealing some ideas and joking along with their kids, their classrooms being similar sizes and cheekyness to ours. We were taken out for dinner later that day too by one of their friends and their waibans. It was good fun chatting to them, playing a new chinese drinking game and eating new food. To say the least though, i drank WAY too much wine and beer and it did end in Pete taking me home, not that he was really in a state to do so. I think i had a good nights sleep when i wasn't stuck hugging the toilet. It was definitely a chilled night the next night, sharing some wine, but relaxing to a movie (well piranha 3DD if you can call it a movie) and gossiping to each other. On our last day we then made some amazing homemade burgers (well the boys did) which we have since tried and failed to make back home in Chongren.. i think it's because we don't have mayonaise, nothing to do with my cooking skills! It was sad goodbyes then back on a stuffy bus to catch out next train to Chengdu (WOOOOOOO), there to chill at the hostel then meet the Jiangxi crew the next day for some mountain climbing up Mount Emei. I had an amazing and my first tuna sandwich since arriving in China and chilled back to a beer and the joy of having wifi back! The hostel (lazy bones) was lovely and clean and a hot shower was very welcome, as well as a good nights sleep, ready to wake up at 6am.