8:30AM Tuesday 30th September at Miao’s Father’s Home
As I didn’t get around to saying it yesterday, we were late arriving at the tain station, as we went to the wrong station at first. We missed out on getting sitting tickets for any train, as they were all already sold. The only train available was at 18:15 with standing tickets. There wasn’t much other option, as a bus would have taken ages. I’d like to point out at that the standing tickets cost the same as the sitting ones, which is a little frustrating. Having arrived at the station at 15:00 we had to wait in the rather Airport like “Shanghai South train station” Which had no fast food joints like McDonalds, KFC, etc. It did however sport a “Chinese Fast food restaurant” where the food didn’t look great, and an overpriced “Italian Restaurant” that had nobody in, and the food looked liked it had been sitting around for a long time. So we spent most of our time walking around taking pictures, reading, (or watching tv shows on iPod) and eating a pot of instant noodles purchased in the Airport style food shops, made with the hot water that is readily and freely available from huge electric immersion heaters.
On the train we managed to get a seat for maybe 30 minutes between stations, but most of my time was spent sitting on the floor in the alcove next to the outside door. There was a trolly that came through with your usual foods, crisps, sweets (chinese) and instant noodles, then strangely for me, another one came with hot cooked food for 10 yuan, and would give you a few scoops of your choice in a box with some chopsticks. The cooked food seemed equally popular with the instant noodles, as they had big immersion heated water on the train as well. Much as perhaps I should have tried them, I did not partake.
We arrived worn out at 21:30 to be greeted at the station by the father. ShuShu is what I should call him. Shushu and a couple of his friends drove us back to Shushu’s house where we were given slippers and told to sit down, and I got given a cold beer. After a little time, we went to help Shushu prepare pillows and quilts for the beds and went out for a “BBQ” at a local restaurant. We selected the bbq sticks we wanted from the fridge at the front of the restaurant and sat down, over the next half hour we ate and drank, and a couple more of Shushu’s friends arrived. I was a little worse for wear at this point, my lack of drinking for the last 8 months in combination with my seemingly good health and being so worn out, it was to be expected, but I felt that I performed well. We were taken home by a friend of Shushu’s and showered and went to bed.
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