We didn't have to book it if we actually knew what we were doing. We went on the slow bus to get to the station, took our time eating McDonalds (they have these spicy chicken patties here that are so delicious! I wish they had them in America!) We thought we knew where we were going, so we got up and started walking to where we thought we were supposed to be, planning to get there right on time, but when we made it to security, the lady shook her head no and pointed to some characters on our ticket. I immediately started FREAKING out because our train was in about 10 minutes! Ah! I have anxiety just thinking about it!
We didn't know what she was saying, we thought maybe we were at the wrong train station all together. Greatest blessing of our trip so far came in the form of an English speaking native (which is pretty rare in Changzhou), who overheard the struggle and quickly told us that we were at the wrong plaza. Turns out, the bullet train plaza is separate from the slow train plaza. And we'd only taken bullet trains so far so we didn't know!
We didn't know where the "south plaza" was, but we BOOKED IT there! We probably could have won some track meets with those sprints! We stopped and asked several people along the way, and made it to our destination with the help of several people pointing towards where we should be. Turns out, we needed to be right next to the McDonalds we had been at just a few moments earlier. The two plazas are super far apart! Definitely a 10 minute walk, so we couldn't have made it if we didn't run. Another blessing: the train was delayed about 10 minutes. That actually never happens, trains here are super punctual. So we had time to spare, and even double check that we were in the right place. We really felt like Heavenly Father was looking out for us that evening!
Oh sleeper trains. They're just a little bit ghetto (the bathrooms, though, are SUPER ghetto. I only needed to use them once, though, because when you know you are going on a sleeper you definitely stop drinking as much water.) but for the price, and for the comfort of laying down, they are so worth it. We got on around 5:45 and had plenty of time to kill before the lights went out at 10! I mostly slept because there's not much else to do. And not much room to do anything anyway, we couldn't even sit up!
This morning we awoke with everyone else at 6:30 when all of the lights came on. I changed my clothes under the covers because I'm really not sure what else I could have done in a compartment full of old Chinese men and women. I definitely wasn't going to risk my clothes falling on the bathroom floor!
We went straight to our Airbnb which was some guy's apartment. I love Airbnb and experiencing local living situations! It was nice to drop off our bags and freshen up just a little bit before taking on Xian's City Wall.
This isn't my first time to Xian. Going several years ago, I LOVED biking on the City Wall. So, I decided that we would have to do just that today!
To spice up the experience, Bailey and I got a tandem bike. I love the freedom of single bikes, but it turns out that the tandem bike lifestyle is better. 1. Because you can actually have conversations while biking 2. I never had to steer so I got to see a whole lot without crashing! And 3. If you stop pedaling, your husband won't even notice! Of course I helped out most of the time, but sometimes a nice break was in order.
We had so much fun biking! We stopped once for the few shops that are on the wall (and I'm glad there are so few, most of the wall is scenic and reconstructed to be just how it was anciently!) and another time for some overpriced smoothies. They looked so refreshing, and thank goodness they were since we paid so much!
We read online that the average time it takes to bike the wall is 2.5-3 hours, but the bike rental is only for 2 hours unless you want to pay extra fees. Tricky, right? Bailey and I were determined to make it back in time, just to show them! And we did with 3 minutes to spare! The fast pedaling of the latter portion of our trip wiped us out, so we took a little break on the wall to eat some lime flavored nori. Delicious!
We love traveling with friends, but sometimes it is good to go just us, because we can go at our own pace. After the wall, we went to Miniso then to our apartment to take a nap. A NAP! A past Madi would have fainted at the idea of taking a nap on the first day of vacation! But, today's Madi cared that Bailey didn't get much sleep last night. And, I want our vacation to be somewhat leisurely considering it is our anniversary trip! We snuggled up and got a nice hour of sleep before getting up for our next adventure!
It was about dinner time by that point, so we went to the Muslim Quarter where we heard we could find great food. And we sure did! Well, first we got some noodles which were subpar. But then we tried the meat on sticks! Oh my goodness, those meat sticks! Sketchiest thing ever. Who knows how long those dead goats have been hanging out there?!
When you live in China, though, sketchy food can't bother you. We tried the goat sticks and LOVED them!
Bailey also tried a Chinese "hamburger" (finely chopped meat shoved in pita bread). Despite the crock pot present at the scene, it still had that very distinct Chinese flavor. Not my favorite.
Bailey and I just eat our way through vacations! By the time the night was over I had bought this cool spiraly stick of potato chip(s?), some quail eggs on sticks, and my favorite, rolled ice cream.
Bailey bought a popsicle which we decided was just frozen Sprite!
One of my favorite finds of the night is this windchime which I definitely will be keeping. 10 kuai!
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