Heading on out

10.08.2015

At about 4:30, I realized that I might miss the bus to Zhengzhou. The last time I went there, I remember running to the bus after class. I figured that was the last bus that time, but this time, it occurred to me right around the worst possible time. I threw every last minute item in my bag, took a shower and ran as fast as possible to the station, just praying I wasn't going to be too late.

It turned out there were buses running until 7, so I was about an hour early. Oh well at least I wasn't stuck.

I got to Zhengzhou at about 8 pm and milled around in the night market for a while. I found a case for my iPod, which I was looking for for a while.

I was still a few hours early for the train, but I sat in the station anyway. I talked with an electrician who makes less than half my salary and probably works twice as hard. Sad. He invited me to go to Shennongjia with him and I said I would think about it.

When I finally got on the train, there were no sleepers, so all I had was a hard seat. I tried to sleep part of the way, but it didn't work very well. <br style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Segoe UI', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; line-height: normal;"> In the morning, I chatted with my neighbor, who was a traditional dance instructor at a college.

After arriving in Yichang, I was dead tired. I still had to catch another bus to Changyang to meet my host Carolyn. She found me as soon as I got there. She cooked me lunch and I fell right asleep for about six hours!

When I woke up we had some insanely spicy street barbecue. My eyes were streaming after eating one particular mushroom and Carolyn's were also, after devouring a crazy piece of lotus root. As soon as our mouths cooled down, we went for a walk along the river. When we got back, Carolyn was tired, so I slept again until morning.

This is after a bunch of people got off