Our last day in Xi'an started simple enough. After getting stuff packed up we decided to look for some food for the 18hr train ride. Unable to find anything that looked like a supermarket we headed for the western style mall we had found on our first day to get some McDonald's. What can I say we wanted a sure thing before our 18 hour ride. While in the mall I realized I have a way with the kids of Xi'an. Aside from the normal stares, one girl stuck her tongue out at me so i did it too and right after that I scared the crap out of a kid coming off the escalator. Seriously the kid was like 12 years old running around his mom, saw me, stopped, and shook like he was having a seizure. With our fill of scaring kids we headed to the top floor of the mall to the mini mart outside the movie theater to try and get dinner for the train ride. It was slim pickings and we ended up with france bread, koola grams, pringels, rice cakes, a snickers, and a bag of m&m's. A feast for kings indeed, sadly it did not come with a bag to carry it in. So there we were walking probably a good mile back down the street to the Hyatt with our pockets stuffed and the rest balanced in our hands. I am sure we looked ridiculous and to top it off we had to walk into the Hyatt to ask for a bag before we left for the train.
At around 4:00pm we headed for the train station. For some reason it is impossible to get a cab from the Hyatt to the train station because the cabs say it is not worth the 2 mile drive. Finally, the door guys convinced one to take us and we were off to Xi'an's main station. We got dropped off about 2 blocks away and started our walk. About 300ft from the door we noticed the pandemonium that awaited us. There were hundreds of people, maybe a thousand and we all had to get through a single door. At this point it was every man for himself and Chris and I proceeded to battle our way through the crowds throwing elbows and knocking over little kids.. actually we spared the kids, but there was plenty of pushing and shoving. I honestly don't know how we would have gotten through if we had kids or someone small with us. We had to traverse two of these choke points to make it inside and when we finally did we were exhausted. Looking around we found the train waiting area and our hearts sunk a little. It was packed and there was no place to put anything. Lucky for us a security guard noticed we were clueless and pointed us in the direction of another waiting area for people with soft sleeper tickets.
Once inside the soft sleeper waiting area, complete with leather chairs and tv's we started to relax....sadly that was short lived. In an attempt to get our own room on the train we both bought two tickets doubling the cost of our train trip. Once in the car we were glad we did. The train room was tiny, literally the width of my shoulders was the gap between the beds and the beds were basically wood with little to no padding. We did our best to settle in, using the top bunks for storage and dug into our bag full of goodies. Dinner for me was 5 france breads and a snickers. Chris had two rice cakes, m&m's and his koala grams. After that I decided to brave the bathroom situation... Yeah it was basically a metal hole (nice stainless steel I must admit) with pee all around it and everything in the place including the handle was wet. I could not figure out where to stand or why everything was so wet, so I just got my business over with quickly and promised myself I would never go back. I ran back to the room in horror kicking my shoes off as soon as I was in and grabbed a hand wipe. Chris found this all very amusing and headed down the hall to take it in despite my warnings. A few minutes later he was back doing the same thing I did kicking his shoes far under the bed and scrubbing his hands with a wipe. It was working out pretty good (other than the "facilities") until the train conductor checked our tickets. We gave her all 4 thinking that would be the end of it, but she continued to come back every hour or so to check our room. After her third visit we were convinced we were getting roommates so Chris got pissed and I started to cry. Chris thought about arguing if it came to it, but I quickly convinced him that it would do no good since no one can understand anything we say and our Mandarin vocabulary included 1 to 2 words. So there we laid for the next 3 or so hours, wide awake, awaiting our pending doom..... by about 12am we were exhausted and gave up to sleeping. We awoke to people yelling in the hall around 7:30am.... no new roommates so we figured we were in the clear. About 6.5 hrs later we finally arrived in Shanghai. Honestly, although we slept for a good chunk of it 20+ hrs on a train sucks. Needless to say we will be assessing other transportation options for our trip out to Guilin, which can take from 22-26hrs.
Once in Shanghai we made our way to the subway, got tickets with little hassle other than the crowds of people pushing through the station, and jumped on the train. Three stops later we got off and headed north like the directions said. The hostel claimed to be 150 meters to the north and then 15 meters from the intersection with Wuling Rd. As we walked the rain intensified and we were getting soaked. The 150 meters turned into a good mile and a half and we may have never found it if we had not run into other backpackers. By the time we found it we were pissed at the directions and soaked. Clearly the directions were not that good and we finally figured out they should have said to go east instead of north. Once there we checked in and got to the room. Overall it is a nice room and the hostel seems pretty nice so far. As for us we are done for the day.... 20 hrs of train travel and a few miles in the rain have done us in. Hopefully tomorrow the rain will stop and we can get out to see a little of Shanghai
