Adventures in Guangzhou!

My two previous experiences with riding hard seat were all miserable but I was optimistic that with the right preparations we would be okay this time. We brought snacks, had three iPods at our disposal, had books, crossword puzzles, and even comfortable clothes. Beyond that, we even lucked out and had excellent seat mates in our little booth (three seats across from three more seats) who didn't smoke, weren't terribly tall (leg room is at a premium), and didn't pester us by trying to practice their English. Yet, despite all the things we had going in our favor, it was still miserable. It's just virtually impossible to get any sleep when you're in the hard seat section.

We arrived at about 7:45am and immediately went about trying to secure tickets back to Guangzhou for Sunday night. I swear, who ever streamlines the whole process of getting train tickets and makes it possible to buy roundtrip tickets is going to make millions. Anyhow, before we even got to the front of the snaking line for tickets, we saw the sign that literally every single ticket was sold-out, including the standing tickets for the hard seat section (the absolute bottom of the barrel). Stupid national holidays.

Plan B--we walked through the slightly overcast morning to the long distance bus station. Luckily, we had no problem getting three bus tickets for Sunday night. The next step was to find a cheap hotel for the night. We ventured across the street and checked into the first place we found that had an open triple for a reasonable price. I was too exhausted even to bargain so we checked in and immediately went up to take a nap. We all promptly fell asleep around 8:15am and would have slept until dinnertime if I hadn't set an alarm for noon.

We struggled out of bed and decided to start our day. First impressions--the city is on the upswing. Being in close proximity to the burgeoning cities of Guangzhou, Changsha, and Wuhan, it's on it's way up. That being said, for a provincial capital it seemed almost quaint and people were definitely not used to having foreigners around, especially those that spoke Chinese. I think we blew the minds of about 15 people when we stepped into a restaurant and ordered lunch.

Anyhow, after lunch we walked up the street to the People's Square, a public space with one big monument, and few sculptures, dozens of park benches, and room to fly kites. It was actually really nice and we meandered around for a bit taking some photos. Jiangxi happens to be important historically for China, as it was the location that the People's Liberation Army came together for the first time and fought a battle. There are commemorations everywhere citing this fact and people seemed proud of it. More specifically, the monuments were very Stalinist with rifles, bayonets, hammers, and sickles. Across the street, the Nanchang Exhibition Hall took this even more to an extreme with a gigantic red star at the top of a very drab building.

From there we hopped a cab and went to Teng wang ge, the "Jumping King Pavilion," a beautiful pagoda structure right on the river. The building was very reminiscent of the Yellow Crane Tower in Wuhan and I immediately began to see similarities in both the pagodas and the cities in general. We made our way up through the different levels of the museum and enjoyed some old art as well as some cool views of the river and the city. We even managed to catch a brief rehearsal of some traditional Chinese dancing at the top level.

From there we went on in the rain to find a cab and head to a museum commemorating the martyrs of the communist revolution. Sadly, it was closed for renovations. Not to be discouraged, we decided it was snack time. The closest place was a little joint with the English translation "See Me Here Cafe." Sure, why not. We ate some some local creations as well as some imported European food (i.e., French fries) and then decided to flee the rain in a movie theater across the way.

It turns out they had an English movie starting in ten minutes called "Tristan and Isolde." We have no idea if this was an old movie or a new movie, but none of us had ever heard of it. The good thing about that was that none of us had any expectations. Well, as it turns out, it wasn't half bad! There was some violence for the fellas and some romance for the lady so we all walked out happy. Can't ask for much more than that when you see a movie in China. After that we caught a late dinner and went back to the hotel where we all quickly fell asleep, still exhausted from the train ride.