Day 4 started with French Toast of course, that I could never pass up each morning while in Xi'an and then heading to see the Great Mosque in Muslim Street. It took us a little while to find the entrance but out of no where behind all these streets of markets there is a huge Mosque that has been there for years and years. The entire place was gorgeous with all the intricate details in architecture and design. I love seeing old architecture like that that has been preserved for all of us to enjoy for years to come. We had some fun spending some time there and taking pictures until we headed back to our hostel to check out, store our luggage in the luggage closet, and then go up to the city wall. Xi'an has a city wall that surrounds what used to be all of Xi'an but now Xi'an extends many miles outside the wall on all sides. The wall is probably around or more than 50 ft. tall and about 20 ft. wide and you can walk around on top of it. Eight of us rented bikes on top of the wall and biked around the entire thing. It was so fun! It was pretty funny because the wall is made of big bricks that aren't exactly put together perfectly so the surface we were riding on was pretty bumpy! We were getting jostled around as we rode but we had a blast. We then met up with the rest of our group, I went to Muslim Street with Aimee, Ashley, and Emily H. for some fruit, and then we headed back to the train station to go to Hangzhou. We were told a few days before that the train ride was going to be a 13 hour ride. We were scheduled to leave at 10 PM and get there a little before noon the next day. Well, come to find out...once we are already on the train mind you, it is a 24 hour train ride again. Luckily this time we got sleeper tickets so we had the option of lying down and sitting up if we wanted to which made all the difference! I slept through the entire night and then took another 3 hour nap later the next day. It was an easy ride compared to the first one but it was still pretty funny when we figured out how long that train ride was going to be. Five of our group members decided to stick with the cheaper price and ride in the hard seats and man, I felt bad for them! It really wasn't bad at all for us though, I could do a 24 hour train ride again easy as long as I have a sleeper!
Once we got to Hangzhou at 10 PM of Day 5 we went to buy our train tickets and found out the ONLY train back to our city would be in eight hours...yes, e-i-g-h-t. Our hostel we had booked was supposedly a half hour away but we didn't really even know since we hadn't been there yet so there was no way we could go all the way there, sleep for four hours, and then go back to the train station. You would think with a group of 11 girls (and three guys) that we would have all broken down at this moment, freaked out, or something...well, we did the exact opposite: we went to our newly found Burger King in the train station and were all super hyper/happy/care-free fanatics. We ordered a bunch of food and danced in the upstairs to the American music that was playing, and even ordered 2 ice cream cones at once! Haha, it was seriously the funniest experience ever. Normally, I would have been so upset to hear we traveled 24 hours just to be in a city for 8 hours (DURING THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT) and hop back on another train with only sitting tickets available for another 22 hours. But, no...we were seriously having the time of our lives in there! After an hour of messing around and getting free Chinese flags from the Burger King workers we left because they were closing and decided why not go to West Lake (what Hangzhou is known for) in the middle of the night?? We walked all the way there and sat by the lake for a couple hours and took tons of crazy pictures before we walked back and waited for our train. The next train ride you of course don't want to know about. I was honestly on the verge of tears getting on that bus because I knew how bad it was going to be and I just didn't want to even try to do it! This time we weren't even sitting together either since we got our tickets so late. But, what can you do. We survived!! Well barely...
Caleb ended up having to go to the pharmacy the next day because of something horrible he caught on that train and 3 of our other teachers weren't able to teach our second day back either. Caleb was hyperventilating, had a high fever, and would even stop breathing every few seconds. We would have to hit him to get him to start breathing again. It was pretty scary. He was really out of it. But luckily after a few days in bed and lots of pills and HORRIBLE cough syrup he is back to his full health and strength. The other three girls that got sick had something else and got pretty sick too but nothing that you would go to the pharmacy or hospital for. Don't worry, none of us have the Swine Flu, if Caleb did have it there is no way they would have let him leave that pharmacy haha.
It really was a great vacation though and it was a blast to see so many new things in China. I love it here and can't get enough of everything around me!! China has been amazing!
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