I heart Pinyin

Well, I had my first "adventure". It started at the main train station in Guangzhou. It is the busiest station in China and swarming with people. The rain hasn't let up in days, so the enormous plaza area was flooded. When I got inside and made it to the departure gate I was grabbed by a middle aged Cantonese woman with three children. She spoke decent english and immediatly began to tell me about her former missionary work. Her, her Russian husband and thier 9 children travel around the world "spreading the word of god" and talking about the antichrist. She was very sweet and also heading for Guilin so I decided to stick with her to make sure I got on my train. After a couple of minutes a Asian man in his 20's walked up and just stood next to me looking like he wanted to ask me somthing. When I turned to face him he immediatly blurted out that he was Korean and didn't know any Chinese. Of the 6 of us, it turned out that one of the children, a 12 year old boy, spoke the best mandarin. This became aparent when he informed us we were at the wrong gate and our train was leaving very soon. After a mad-dash for the train, I began my first 12 hour train ride.

After a brief exchange about someone being in my bed, everything sorted itself out, and I sat down across from 2 teenage girls. In the train beds(bunks) included a bottom, middle, and top. Across from these beds were 3 more with a small table in the middle. At the foot of the beds was a hallway with a miniture table and two fold-out seats. Between the exchanges the two young women had with other passengers, I was able to figure out that they were part of a shool group heading back to Guilin from Gongzhou.

Things were pretty akward so, in an attempt to lighten the mood, I whipped-up a ballon flower and gave it to them. Immediatly one grabbed my balloon creation and ran off. Less than a minute later she returned with a flock of teenage girls which decended upon me. During this time I was able to practice my Chinese, so it turned out to be very positive while also being very unconfortable for me. As I stumbled over the Chinese word Ting, which means listen, stop, and please, an off Duty policeman came down from the bunk above me. He turned out to be very nice and spoke a little bit of English. At about 10pm I said I needed sleep and and everybody dispersed, but not without taking at least 16 pictures of me. This was even more unconfrotable than just being teh center of attention.

And so began my first full night on a train. I enjoyed the rocking motion and soon was fast-asleep. I had been told by the policeman that the bottom bunk, which is what I had, was the nicest, and most exspensive bunk.

At 12am I awoke to water splashing across my face and a weird almost grinding sound. I was still half asleep so nothing was really registering. Shortly after the first berrage, even more water splashed across my face accompanied with that horrible sound. Then, suddenlt, I realized that the sound was in fact gagging. I immediatly sat up just as the young man in the middle bunk across from me vomited on me, the floor, and himself a third time. As I scrambled to get out of bed the policeman sleeping above me jumped down also. It turns out that the teenage boy, who couldn't hold his liqiour, was projectile vomiting so hard that he was clearing the gap between the two sets of beds and hitting the policeman across from him too. Both covered in puke, the policeman and I ran to the washroom, which was the only lit room on the train at this point. The damage was pretty bad, with little pieces of noodle (mien) all over my shirt, face, and hair.

15 Minutes and a bottle of hand sanitizer later, I felt relitivly clean. The policeman and I joked about the experience for a while and sat down at the small table and fold out chairs in the hallway across from our beds. Just as I was going over the difference between saying 4 and 10, the young vomiteer sat up facing us and threw-up again, out over his bed, across the hallway, and onto the very seats we were siting on. The policeman and I immediatly scattered, each running in different directions through the train. This time I escaped, but the policeman wasn't so lucky.

After a second showering, the Policeman showed me to an empty top bunk, far away from my original and informed me that I should sleep there. This was extremely nice of him, and I spent the rest of the night devoid of any bodily fluids.

I arrived in Guilin at 7am and immediatly made for the local youth hostel. When I arrived on the spot, there was no hostel. As I stood there looking, I'm sure, bewildered, an older Chinese man appeared and asked me if I was looking for the Guilin Internation Youth Hostel. I said "yes", and we began talking. As our conversation progressed I learned that he was the owner of the hostel and that he had shut it down for repairs. His name was Mike Lu and I guess he owns a number of hotels in the area. He offered to walk me 8 blocks to his cheapest hotel, which was confirmed by the Lonley Planet. He was good conversation, and got me a single room at half the normal price. Half the "normal price" is probably standard for people who aren't western but it was still very welcome.

Lastly, an older woman walked me three blocks and set me up with internet here. So far I have been very impressed, and am thankful for all of the kindness I have recieved. It would be safe to say that I have been quite reliant on the kindness of strangers.

Points of interest:

I had my first returant experience where I spoke only Chinese. It went flawlessly. Later, on a different outing I tried to order pork and rice, but got beef and noodles. I guess I have some kinks to work out.

The food is fantastic and super cheap, usually under 1 American dollar

I had my first Chinese toilet (really just a hole in the ground) experience. It wasn't nearly as bad as I had been told.

The drivers and pedestrians are far crazier than New York, which is the only comparable city I have been to.

My blog is blocked from viewing in mainland China.