Getting to Shanghai

Sunny, a Chinese Teacher, had arranged train tickets for us to Shanghai. We had the new flash overnight train. We had bottom bunk hard sleepers. I think we left about 10 pm and arrived at 6 am.

When we were leaving the school campus we ran into Sunny, Bill and James. They were getting out of a taxi. So we jumped in it. We asked Bill if he could ask the taxi driver to take us to the train station. All was good. When we got to the train station the taxi driver wanted to charge us Y10. I argued with him and got the Y5 back. He must of thought that because Bill asked him we didn't know the deal! This was to be the first of our taxi dilemma's on our Shanghai trip.

The trip to Shanghai by train is a good trip. It leaves at sleeping time and arrives at waking time. The bottom bunk hard sleeper is the prime sleeper. It was Y235 there and Y245 return. Haven't worked this one out yet!

On the train I had settled and off I went to sleep only to be woken by a symphony of snoring. It was unbelievable. These people are happily snoring away as I am shushing them.

We arrived in Shanghai with a little sleep under our belts. We head out of the train station only to be accosted by taxi touts. The first tout told us the hotel was a long way away and that he would do us a good deal at Y200. I said no and kept walking. He then came down to Y150. I still said no and kept walking. The next tout said Y100. I said no and kept walking. He came down to Y80. Barbara thought we should take this. I said no and kept walking. I hailed a cab from the street told him where we wanted to go and we wanted the meter. With the meter on we paid less than Y20.