better, I had arranged to meet a friend again for the day so had a late
breakfast before wandering out. Did a bit of shopping before meeting up with
my friend and bought a few gifts and had a look around tesco, a bit surreal!
Met my friend and together we walked down to the central shopping district
and had a look around there.
My sister called and wanted to meet up so I took my friend and together we
met my sister at shamien island and explored that again along with some
shopping in the multitude of souvenir shops around the old British and
western concessions.
After this we pointed gabby towards a massive market and went to find
somewhere to sit down for a bit! As we sat outside chatting suddenly the
wind really picked up and massive black clouds came rolling in, as we walked
back to the Metro the wind got stronger and we felt the first touches of
rain, we made it back into the station just in time and as we looked back it
really started to rain!
We got the metro to a random stop and found ourselves in the Muslim district
so decided to eat there.
We tried to find something spicy but every place we tried had nothing, in
the end I ordered a few things to share and had a great meal.
After the meal we found a nearby coffee shop to sit down and watch the rain
from until my friend had to leave for the bus. Getting to the bus stop did
involving climbing over a fence in the middle of the road as there was
literally no crossing but we made it with a bit of a lift. After dropping
off my friend I hit the subway back and dragged my sister out of bed since
it was her last night.
To celebrate I took her out for a meal in a tiny local restaurant with a few
beers and then we wandered back to the Hostel and chatted over another beer.
Chris and the other guys from the hostel including Felix who I've mentioned
all went out clubbing but I stayed back with my sister to say goodbye.
My sister introduced me to another girl from the hostel before she left,
Claire, a Chinese girl about to go to england for a year!
My sister finally went off to bed around 1 and Claire and I stayed up
drinking before we decided to go for a walk. We walked through the town and
along the river and chatted before seeing the ferry dock was deserted now
the ferry had stopped for the night. We let ourselves in and walked along
the dock with the pretty lights on the opposite side of the river. Claire
took a look into a boat and saw the ferry workers doing ktv!
We spent the night chatting and walking around and sitting by the river
until at 6am around 30old Chinese guys came down and started to swim
together across the river! Crazy! The river is so dirty and still a major
shipping lane!
We walked back to the hotel and said goodbye to a confused and tired
gabrielle before we went to bed around 7am.
We all had to checkout before 12 so we did and chris just walked into the
seating area and camped out for the whole day, even sleeping through half of
it. Claire was practising for her driving test the next morning but we
chatted around that before I went with her to tthe station.
Once I was in town I did some shopping and picked up some cool things before
meeting Chris back at the hostel.
We got our things and made our way to the bus station for our 8pm overnight
bus to yangshou.
The bus was cool with 30 or so sleeping beds half under each other in 3
rows. We found our beds but they were too short for me, let alone Chris! And
no onboard toilets just every few hours a service station or smoke break!
The bus was fine albut instead of a 6am arrival we arrived at 2am. Having
slept very little we stumbled off as a confused little group and met a
German couple equally dazed and confused...
We had booked a hostel but for the next night thinking we would he asleep on
the bus all night and so had nothing to do until midday check in.
We decided to at least dump our bags so went to our Hostel and we all left
our bags there before walking out into 2.30am yangshou!
We found a BBQ place and so sat down and had a few beers and some BBQ snacks
and chatted with the germans. We paid the bill and as we left i got chatting
with some Chinese buying water.
The Chinese were a group of 5 all off to climb a mountain overlooking the
town to watch the sunrise, they invited us along and we accepted!
Having not slept that night and barely slot the night before the climb up
was interesting, especially with 3 torches between 9!
We made it to the top in around an hour dragging the hesitant Germans along.
It was pretty hot and we were sweating buckets before we made it. The top is
actually a TV mast and so we had to go past lots of no entry signs and a few
closed but not locked gates to get there but we made it and watched the
sunrise.....behind a bank of clouds! It was still amazing to see the
mountains appear out of the mist and then the row behind appear, an amazing
introduction to the town.
We climbed down and all went ffor breakfast and a beer before saying
goodbye, exchanging qq details and making a friend in macau, and then
checkers into our hotel at 8 as someone checked out early, we chased the
maids out, showered and slept for most of the day, it was much needed!
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