The story behind this picture

Matt and I just got back from a trip to Zhangjiajie. It was the Chinese National Holiday on the first and so we got a week off school! I believe that events occur as a result of the events proceeding them, so I will start from the beginning to explain just how Matt's feet came to be poking out from below a train seat headed to Changsha. (this is basically an overview of our entire trip, details are coming in the following posts, so don't freak out yet, and I know it's long, but stay tuned, we'll get there)

It's Saturday morning. Matt and I had spent the night at our friend Jason's apartment (in Yongzhou) in preparation for our early train to Xiangton. We travel with ease to the train station in the neighboring city (sometimes quite a feat, as bus rides here never take the same amount of time twice) with time to spare. We load said train and realize that instead of purchasing 'hard seat' tickets, we had gotten standers. Let me quickly explain the ticketing system here. There are four main classes on every train: standing (not in a separate car with no seats, just in the aisle), hard seat, hard sleeper and soft sleeper (Matt claims there is a 'soft seat' that we have not yet encountered, what say you Olivia?). So basically, standing stinks. Luckily, we were able to find some seats that had been abandoned by travelers who had already reached their destination. We had been on our *supposedly* four hour train for three hours when we learned that it was in fact a SEVEN hour train ride. Ah man. This city is a three hour car ride away. Basically, we got on a slow train (sorry, I should also mention that all trains are not created equal. Some like to just randomly stop in the middle of nowhere for a couple hours). So that wasn't super fun but whatever. The three of us eventually found a vacated area that we could play games in, so that helped pass the time, and also helped confuse several Chinese nationals who I'm sure were trying to figure out how we were playing Citadels.

We arrived in Xiangton and stayed the night with our friends there. It was awesome. We ate delicious food (see post below). 

Sunday night, we boarded our 9 o'clock train to Zhangjiajie. This time we had hard sleepers. I am totally in love with them. Basically the car is set up with stacks of three bunk beds and you can sleep the whole way (but I will explain more about them later, I don't feel that my adoration for them is pertinent to the 'Matt's feet' situation). We arrived in Zhangjiajie at seven in the morning, but not without first being approached by a tour guide who managed to trick us into thinking that a tour was the best and cheapest way to experience Zhangjiajie. I think several factors played into our foolish decision. First of all, we didn't really have a plan, we just wanted to explore and have an adventure and second of all some key points about the tour were lost in translation. Our friend Jason majored in Chinese, so he knows whats up, but I think it was more the cultural translation. When the tour director said all fees were included, we 'stupidly' assumed that that meant all the fees. Haha... no. Apparently, transportation to our various destinations was included, however not the return trip. Oh, there were buses taking our entire group back to our hotel for the night, but of course we had to pay ten RMB/person to take them. Anyways, I am trying to not be bitter about this, so I will move on. If you would like to hear more about how we got rocked, please email me and I could rant for a good five pages. 

Sooo, we gave this guy a good chunk of our change (we haven't gotten paid yet, so funds are limited) and he hurried us out of the train station before we could purchase our return tickets. The National Holiday is a crazy time to travel because you have a billion people here all on break. Literally. And in China (we thought) you can't buy tickets from a city unless you are in that city (like, you can't buy round trip tickets, you would have to buy a ticket to your destination and then buy the return ticket when you got there). So basically, we have no tickets home at this point in time. This time being Monday morning. So we did our robbery tour thing (more about that later, this post is mostly about the traveling portion of our adventure) and got back to the train station late in the afternoon on Tuesday (keep in mind for later that we woke up at five in the morning and spent the whole day climbing 14,000 stairs). Guess what? The only tickets left to Xiangtan are standing. For nine hours, and nothing ever goes straight through to our city (We are headed to Yongzhou from Zhangjiajie). I definitely didn't want to stand for that long, we addressed other options with the nice ticket lady and learned that there were hard seat tickets to Changsha arriving at 11 that night. However we would then have to wait until 4:30 to catch a train to Yongzhou. We stepped out of line to asses our options. We finally decided that we would get the tickets to Xiangtan, even though they were standing, hoping that we could again find seats. We got back in line, but now those tickets are sold out. We again convene out of line, mostly complaining about the tour that ruined our lives and decided that we would take the tickets to Changsha and sleep at the train station. By the time we got back into line, the seats are gone. All that is left is standing. We were really angry. We were really tired. We were really frustrated. I'm sure this will be funny in a month. 'Whatever' we say, and after purchasing the tickets (immediately, since we had already realized tickets were selling like hotcakes) we BOOKED it up to the platform and just made it onto our train.

I would just like to mention now that I realize this post is getting long. I know that you are my true friend if you made it to this point. If not, I probably never liked you much anyways. Anyways, we get on the train and happily find seats, but, on these trains that only means you have a seat until the next stop. At that point the ticket holder could board and kick you to the curb. We were able to maintain our seats for two stops; still about four hours to go. So ya, we were just chillin' in the aisle. It's really weird just standing there next to someones seat. Finally I sat down in the aisle. Matt followed. With about three hours to go, Matt got tired (this is when you should remember our early waking and strenuous exercise) and cramped sitting Indian style on the aisle floor. So, he made me stand up, and he somehow maneuvered himself under the seat he used to be leaning against. And this my friends, is the very anti-climactic end to the story of how Matt's feet came to be sticking out from under a train seat in a 'wicked witch of the east' style. At least the Chinese people were very entertained. Cool story eh? (I will admit, this post sounded much more interesting in my head, but now that I have typed it I might as well post it right?) I will also just add that when we got to Changsha, we went to the McDonald's there, got lots of food (we had only snacked since breakfast, now twenty hours previous), and slept there. I slept at a McDonald's. Not quite as cool as sleeping out in front of the train station, but I was too tired and sore to move there.

Luckily, this story has a happy ending where our tickets from Changsha home are hard sleepers. I was happy for about five hours til I had to wake up and get on a bus to Dong'an. (I would also like to mention that the return trip took about ten hours, whereas getting there took about twenty. Go figure, they must have a method to the train madness, but I certainly don't know what that is.) I was tired and gross and sore when I got to Dong'an, but I was happy to be home, and even more happy that it felt like home. Wow that was a long post... well, now for the pictures and the fun things that happened! Huzzah!