find we have no water! Great! Spent the morning packing until elaine arrived
and then she started making calls and before long some guys are trying to
fix the water while a few more are trying to fix the internet (also broken).
We left them to it and went to get xiaolongbao and mazhan jianbao, two foods
I have never seen in England but are very tasty!
We did some last minute present shopping and then went for a meal in a
nearby restaurant.
The next morning is the morning we were due to leave lingxi but I got a call
at 8am that there had been a big train crash near Hangzhou on the d3115, the
train we always take and I have taken many times!
One carriage was on a bridge when a power cut caused it to stop and another
train crashed into the stationary one, knocking two carriages off the
bridge. 35 people are thought to have died and the worst bit is that some of
my students were on that train!
The lesser problem is that the accident had closed all the train routes
through my town to Hangzhou but we have a flight to catch!
Elaine to the rescue, she got our train tickets refunded and managed to buy
two tickets on the last bus to Shanghai that night. The only problem being
it was not a sleeper bus and that it arrived at 3am!
We were pretty much packed so spent the day with elaine and Jenny and had a
nice meal, when we walked in the chef was hooking fish out of the tank and
throwing them onto the concrete floor in the reception with nobody even
looking twice, the price of truly fresh fish I guess!
We got to the bus station in plenty of time and were treated while we waited
and for the first hour of our journey to an amazing lightening storm.
Literally the whole sky was covered in bright forks, it was amazing and very
beautiful, I wished I had time to set up my camera and take some pictures,
but no luck!
The bus ride was uneventful by Chinese standards but did involve three grown
men holding and helping a small male child to urinate into a bottle, but
then, this is china!
Got a taxi to the hostel and was just given a bed and told to checkin in the
morning, perfect!
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