(27 September)

Ok so the next morning we had nearly the full day to ourselves before the night train! So I had a lie in till around half 10, chilled out and packed etc until checkout at 12. Then went with the other 4 girls to the Muslim Market. Unfortunately it was raining which was a bit miserable! We stopped at Starbucks again for breakfast (best blueberry muffin ever!)...think we had all just about reached our limit for Chinese food! The market was really fun, same idea as calligraphy street but bigger and different things to buy. I got a few more presents, and a "gucci" watch for £4 haha...absolutely loving the haggling again. It's definitely the way to go with shopping haha. They always start mega high and then it's just like eh, nah. Claire and Deborah were definitely getting better at it too! Although it was so fun I was really glad I ran out of money and had to stop lol.

In the Market Claire and Deborah ran into a girl they had met doing a Gap tour in south America! Was so weird, she was on the tour like ours but starting from hong kong and going to beijing. We talked to her and her friend which was fun, got to hear a bit about where we were going! Actually mental though that they just ran into her!

Then we went to find a bank, and got a pizza hut for dinner on the way back to the hotel (told you we wanted western food haha!). It was really good though, and I had these asparagus and beef battered spring roll type things with my pizza so it was almost cultural... Haha. Then we massively failed at finding a walmart for some train food, and headed back to get the bus to the train station.

That was an experience and a half! The bus we had "hired to take us to the station" actually mounted a footpath and drove along it for about 5 minutes instead of driving on the road, presumably to avoid the traffic haha! Then it dropped us a ten minute walk from the station, and we walked through the rain to find that there was this tiny narrow entrance to get in and out of the train station main entrance... It was just unbelievable. I don't know of I've mentioned yet, but the Chinese do not queue. They will take your eye out trying to push in front! So this tiny entrance was just madness. Everyone pushing in different directions... People have all sorts to bring on the trains as well! Massive big boxes etc...I can't even explain how crazy the whole situation was. When we finally made it to the, frankly dirty train station, I found the toilets... Which had half level Walls around them, no doors, squat toilets obviously... I think that's where j draw the line at toilets china! Not just sitting in a line thank you very much! Especially when the staring is bad enough as it is because we are white haha!

When the train started to board people were like running to the front and diving over chairs with their suitcases to get on first... I've never seen anything like it haha. Thankfully though we hung back like normal people, and the train was clean, normal enough people in the carriage, no walls and doors on the cabins but that's not a massive deal. Again managed a lucky one, or else I'm just completely deaf in my sleep, I slept ok apart from being pretty hot, whereas everyone else was complaining about the noise cos they were closer to the doors! We got off the train the next morning, and went to the bus station to wait for our bus.