Day 50 - Taking it easy in Yichang

After the last week of travelling, it was nice to relax in the room before heading to the train station to book our tickets for tonight. We are leaving Hubei province (after only arriving yesterday) at 11.30pm tonight, and going to Hunan province where we hope to relax in tranquill villages for the next few days.

Dropping the deadweight of our packs at the train station, we headed for a feed, which well and truly made up for last night both in terms of taste and price - we got a huge bowl of scrumptious spicy noodle soup, with chives and beans for 35 cents each.

We then found a wangba (internet cafe), after being away from a computer for the last 4 days, and knowing we probably won't be around another for the next few days either, we caught up on our blogging (please enjoy!).

On our way to the train station we stopped for dinner and managed to get a few different meals for a change - not that we are avoiding different food, but having to get vege meals restricts us from doing the normal point and order technique that most travellers use. The different meals were a nice change, although one of the three didn't get touched much - now we've just got to learn what it was so we don't order it again!

Up (literally - about 300 stairs up) at the train station we sat and enjoyed the view above the city, while sweltering in the evening heat - in fact several people stopped to tell us: "it's hot out here, why don't you wait in the waiting room?!". We spent the next 4 hours happpily watching the kids congregate to skateboard, rollerblade, and bike - basically just wheel around - while the parents kept a close-ish watch on the kids and the grandparents sat and gossiped amongst themselves. The kids, some as young as 5, stayed out playing around until we boarded our train at 11.15pm!

As Liv ventured off for fruit she returned to find Adam in a conversation (?) with a lovely old man, which as time went on encouraged others to approach the laowai (foreigners). Many parents often encourage their children to say hello to us, though we often feel like the parents want to say hello, but are to embarrased to do so themselves.

Eventually we went inside to wait for the train, and upon entering we wondered why people had been telling us to go inside as the heat was even more restricting inside.

When we finally boarded the unairconditioned train, we found our very (un)comfortable beds for the night, and Adam set about waving and shouting his 'zaijian' (goodbye) out the window to the guards to many amused stares and occasional giggle!

As it was already 11.30pm we pretty much settled down to sleep, underneath beautiful towel blankets, obviously used night after night, not daring to sit up and risk a concussion - the only upside of the top bunk (of 3) is that we were the closest to the fan.

Adlibing it out of the furnace (finally) ...