Chongqing, China, Asia

I had a horrible night’s sleep last night! I was in a six person dorm but with five other Chinese people. I wasn’t able to speak to any of them, and I have found that they can be incredibly rude. A girl was talking on her phone through the night. It didn’t matter if someone called her at 3am, she answered it and talked for at least five minutes. Two other guys were snoring the whole night, so that was annoying. Then at 6:30am a cell phone alarm went off for at least a full minute before the owner decided he could turn it off. He then sat up in his bunk and thought it was a perfect time to use his electric shaver, while the other five of us were still trying to sleep. You would think that no matter where you are in the world, common courtesy should be universal. It’s definitely not in China. They don’t take anyone else into consideration, no matter what the circumstances.

I went down to the restaurant and thought I’d might as well have some breakfast since I was getting no peace in my own room. I found out that there is a private room available for tonight, so I’m taking that instead of dealing with the same thing again tonight. The single room isn’t nice, but it’ll do for one night. The room smelled like smoke when I first checked in, but the girls at the desk put some incense in there and it’s much better now. Just a very basic room though, no TV, no bathroom, just a double bed with a kettle in the room and A/C (while stinks of cigarette smoke when you turn it on).

I spent most of today on the computer trying to change my internal flights while I’m in America. Nikki was a huge help with my flight out to CO, and I was able to change my Southwest flight back to Hartford no problem. With those flights sorted out, I decided to check out flights that are a little sooner. It took a lot of research but I finally got my flights booked to go to South Korea! I’m going to go for a week from October 28 until November 5 to see my cousin Crystal and meet her husband and new baby boy. I’m really excited to get out there and see some friendly faces, and actually be able to speak English to people!

I needed to book my train ticket for after this cruise on the Yangtze, so I made my way down to the Chongqing Train Station. I took a local bus down the road and found the station, and found the ticket booth. It’s just the same at every station in China, so while it’s not any easier, I’m getting used to the difficulties here. I found a woman who could book my ticket from Yichang to Xi’an, so I got a bottom berth on the hard sleeper for the 16 hour ride. That should be easy after the 24 hour journey to Chengdu. After I got my ticket I decided to walk back to the hostel instead of taking the bus. This really isn’t a nice city. It reminds me of the limbo part of Inception when there are loads of skyscrapers that are all unfinished. In the movie, the buildings are falling down, they weren’t here, but it still looks horrible.

I got back to the hostel after a couple hours of wandering around and just hung out here for the night. I met a nice Canadian couple, Eric and Paulina, who are travelling around the world, so we chatted for a few hours before calling it a night. I leave for my cruise tomorrow night, and it can’t come soon enough. I’m definitely ready to get out of this big city!