Back to Shangrao

20.08.2015

The day before, Bob and I went to the bus station and a woman there told us to come back at 11 a.m. the next day for the bus to Yingtan, where I could catch another one to Shangrao to stay with Doreen again.

Before we even left, Bob got a call from the woman saying that the bus was full. Now I would have to go to Nanchang instead, way out of my way. Ugh. Luckily, Bob knew someone who went to university in Shangrao. He said we could catch another bus straight to Shangrao at the side of the highway, at one of those service stations, where they would stop for lunch.

So Bob called the company and they said that there were in fact seats on that bus, thankfully. Bob's cousin was game to drive me all the way out to the highway (At first, I thought it was close, so I was confused why we needed a ride and couldn't just take a taxi. It ended up being 30 km away!)

By then I was feeling bad because of all Bob's efforts, as well as all the distance his cousin brought me in his fancy SUV. They waited with me for over an hour and got me on the bus without any problems. It was really very kind and again, there was no way to repay them. I left feeling relieved that I didn't have to go to Nanchang anymore, but also feeling guilty that I caused so much concern to his family!

I got to Shangrao at about 5:45 p.m. and Doreen picked me up again. She paid for my dinner and even bought me a ticket to Wuyuan for the next day. We planned to go with four of her friends on the train and hang out and go to a water park for the weekend. I thought we were visiting grandma, but apparently that plan changed since I left, haha.

After dinner, we strolled around the park near her house, which has a giant sculpture of a metallic planet with clouds. There were also some propaganda tourism videos actually projected onto the planet, which showed scenes from Jiangxi's tourism board. It was quite mesmerizing and I forgot my camera, sorry.

Then, we went for a short drive to see the pagodas and the bridge lit up at night. When we got home, I washed my clothes on the "antibacterial" setting because they stunk so bad still. It took two hours and I didn't get to bed until 11!

Me and Bob in the car