We got a bullet train in the morning which was really nice and roomy inside, there was a speedometer in the carriage and we got up to 308kmh, we had a three hour wait at our transfer station so we went and got a kfc, it was hard to get a table because the chinese just sat in their waiting for their train hours before not even buying anything from kfc.

We were expecting to be picked up by the hostel at the train station but no one was there so we had to walk most of the way to the hostel which was pretty far. Pingyao was a very pretty little town with small streets and really old chinese buildings, there were no cars allowed in the town so it was really quiet aswell. Our hostel was a really nice old chinese building with small courtyards outside the rooms.

It was really busy in Pingyao because it was a chinese holiday so a lot of chinese also came to Pingyao for their holiday, this meant we were getting loads of stares and loads of people were taking pictures of us walking past not being sly at all. There wasn't a lot to do in Pingyao other than walk around the shops and stalls. We tried Pingyao beef which was meant to be really good beef and really popular, it turned out to be really fatty slices of processed beef that just tasted exactly like corned beef. We sat on an outside table to eat and people would walk past but stop dead when they saw us and stare at us and watch us eat for about 5 minutes, even sitting next to us and taking pictures, the chinese dont seem to have any concept of personal space or awkwardness.

We sat in the hostel a lot of the time as they sold 500ml bottles of beer for 50p. On our last day we treat ourselves to a pizza for lunch which was a really good change to the usual sloppy noodle soup with mystery meat. We also treat ourselves to a 60 minute massage where they did our neck, backs and feet which was really relaxing but as it was a chinese massage they really dug their fingers in at times and it would hurt but did us some good, this only cost us about £4.80 each!

We headed to the station for our night train where the station was crazily busy, the chinese all want to be the first ones on anything so push and shove and crowd for no reason, it was really busy as it was a tiny station with one platform but your not allowed on the platform until your train is here and there is about 3 minutes in between each train. So theres hundreds of people for multiple trains and there was one door for people to go through and get their ticket checked, I dont know why they have to make it so stressful.

Once we were on the train we sat down on the wooden seats that were at a right angle, they didnt recline and the seats were facing each other which meant there was no leg room at all, there were chinese people stood around us and people staring for about 40 minutes non stop, even when we stare back they carry on staring and dont seem to look away. In the 9 hours we were on it we probably slept for about 10 minutes!