A Cross Country Trek

Hello, noble readers. In the last two days I have traveled over 1400 km in a country where I can only read about half the signs and no one on the trains speak my language. It was pretty epic.

I got up, got all ready to go and was all set for railroading. I wore my big coat, even though it was rather warm in Shanghai that morning, and bound to be even warmer in Guangzhou. However, that coat is huge. I mean absolutely huge. I think you could measure its volume in litres.

I got myself to the correct railway station, (the big cities aren't content with just one railway station) got to the waiting room, and rested. My packsack is very heavy. Carrying it around railway stations is rather tiring.

The way to figure out how to get on a train, when your ticket is in another language, except for some random numbers, is to follow everybody else. So when everyone stands up, you stand up too. When they head for the train, you head for the train too. It works quite well.

I got on the train, found my bunk (I picked the upper bunk on the bunk bed when I bought my ticket, so I could just sit up there and ignore the other people in my room.) and got settled in. As it turns out, the only other person in my berth was a chinese lady who may or may not have spoken any English at all. She only ever spoke Chinese at me.

I spent the whole day (since I was confined to a train) reading and playing games on my computer. A nice day, in other words. Unfortunately, I have this problem when I am on trains in China. I don't know how to get food. There is a dining car, but every time I go into one, everyone just sort of looks at me, and I don't know what to do.

Eventually, since I hadn't eaten for 12 hours, I was hungry enough that I looked up the Chinese word for eat, walked into the dining car, pointed at myself and said it. This was enough, and I got myself some food, which was pretty stellar. Not the food, it was pretty lame. The fact that I was eating was super exciting.

I slept fitfully all night (the train stops, often several times an hour, and every time it does so, it bangs around a bit, blows its whistle and the station sounds a warning bell. ALSO they like to have bright lights in the station). I got to Guangzhou early, and dragged myself out of the station, managed to find a taxi (they were all driving by, empty, in an area where you couldn't access them) and got to the hotel where my luggage was being stored.

I double checked the time of my next train, and the name of my hotel in Hong Kong, so I would be all ready. I took a taxi to the other train station in Guangzhou (it would be entirely too convenient to have both trains I needed at the same station).

Now being the fore-thinking person that I am, I had purchased my ticket online, and needed to pick it up.

The thing with the Guangzhou East train station is that it has 5 floors. Why this is the case, I do not know, but there are. The ticket office was on the second floor. So I went there. I asked where to pick up my tickets, she said the 4th floor. So I went to the 4th floor.

On the 4th floor, they told me to go back to the 2nd floor. I tried to get internet access at that point, to see what the website had to say, but there was no network there. So it was back to the second floor.

I showed the lady there my laptop with the ticket reservation email open (which I had cleverly left open when I was at the hotel.) She explained to me that when you buy a ticket online to go from Guangzhou to Hong Kong, you have to pick it up in....HONG KONG. I was NOT impressed by this.

Still, not a huge deal. Train tickets are only 180 Yuan ( = $25 CAD). So I'd buy a new one. But what's this? They don't take credit card at the station, only cash? Oh, and I don't have enough cash because I was leaving the country and didn't need it anymore? Oh, how WONDERFUL. Luckily (?) for me there was an ATM. It was on the first floor.

Now, it is time to point something out here. I had picked up my luggage from the hotel, so I was now carrying two suitcases and a large packsack. I estimate the total weight of my luggage at 120 pounds. Most of the time, I could drag my suitcases on the ground, so it was only the 40 lb packsack I had to worry about. But as it turns out the only way to get down from the second to the first floor is stairs. So guess who was carrying 120 lbs of luggage down a huge flight of stairs. It was me.

I found the ATM on the first floor, and tried to use my credit card to withdraw cash. But for some unknown reason, they decided to accept only 6 digit pins on this machine. Mine is 4. In order to get that to work, you're supposed to put two 0's after your number. But do you think that worked? No it did not. I tried it over and over again, trying the 0's in different places, and trying double other numbers at the end. But it did not work.

OK, so I would try and get cash back when I bought something then. Ha ha, silly me, NOWHERE in the station takes credit card, except for the Starbucks, and they don't have cash-back. I asked the information lady, and she said there was another ATM downstairs. So, I went into the basement, went to the ATM, typed in my pin number, and it said...I had tried my pin too many times that day on my card. I couldn't use it. If there wasn't a security guard standing right there, I might have kicked that machine. Repeatedly.

Now, this was only my credit card. I could still potentially use my bank card. However, I hadn't called them to let them know I was in China, and I was told that they'll freeze your account if you try to use your card in a foreign country without letting them know first.

So, I need to call them. There were payphones (on the same level even) but you needed some kind of card to use them. So I tried to purchase a card (back up on level 1 and 2). But the only thing I managed to purchase was a cell phone long distance card. This was not on purpose.

Then I remembered I had a cell phone, and maybe magically with a long distance card, it would work. But, because my cell phone has been acting very strangely, I hadn't charged it so it was dead. But I had a power cable. So I tried outlets on the second and fourth floor, but they were both deactivated. I tried asking some stores to use their phone, but I couldn't make a call outside China.

At this point, I sat down amid my luggage and considered my options. They were extremely limited. In fact, for a while, I thought my options might be to find a hotel, call the bank from the hotel, and come to Hong Kong the next day. That would be bad for me though, since I would be paying for two hotels tonight.

My other option was to try my bank card and hope. So it was back to the basement (from the fourth floor). And....it worked! I got my cash, bought my ticket and got on the train. It took me two and a half hours of walking all over that station with my 120 lbs of luggage to get a train ticket that I had already bought. I am distinctly unimpressed with that train station just now.

However, I am now in Hong Kong, in my very tiny hotel room. Very tiny. The main part is about the size of a cubicle, and the bathroom must be about 16 square feet, and that includes a shower. I am, however, very happy to be here. You see, in Hong Kong, just about everyone speaks English. Decent English too, so you can ask for clarification on things, which is not something I could usually do in mainland China.

Tomorrow I am going shopping for the last of the presents I am bringing back, and the day after I am out of here! My plane leaves at 2 in the afternoon, and arrives in Vancouver at 9 am the same day. How crazy is that?

Oh, and my mom posted a comment about it, but I'm guessing not everyone checks those repeatedly to see if they're updated; My flight gets in to PG at about 2pm. My parents are picking me up from the airport, and taking me to their place for dinner. After dinner (about 6:00-6:30) I will be back at my apartment. The following day, barring a major case of jet lag, I'll be at school.

Here are some pictures from Shanghai. It's back to Picasa, because Hong Kong is outside the great firewall, so I can access my own pictures.