Finally, I've managed to sort my life out a little bit and made myself to do something else before sleeping.
This is about Shanghai&Hangzhou trip I had after finishing my school and before going back hometown for my holidays.
What I can say, it's a very rush trip!
Ivan fell sick few days before our departure and we almost canceled the trip because he's having fever!! That was the time when H1N1 just hit. Our flight was in the evening and he finally felt better on THAT morning and decided to go! So, we were kind of rush and packed our luggages and caught the flight......
Flying to Hangzhou.
Ivan slept all the way...... so we didn't planned our trip.......
If you still remember, for this trip, we just simply booked our flight tickets and hostels without further planning our schedules because we were busy with our school works. By the time we finished our final year project things, we had to pack our stuff and left Penang. Once we reached KL, we were busy with getting our gears ready and......Ivan fell sick.
Anyway, we made a very rough plan before we got carried away by school works. By the time we reached Hangzhou, it's almost midnight. According to our plan, we have to take a bus to go to Hangzhou City and took a cab to the hostel which is located neat the West Lake. We didn't know where should we stopped actually, we had to hand over the map of the hostel to the ticket lady on the bus when the bus stopped somewhere. She looked it, and said, "NOW!!! This is where you need to get off the bus and catch a cab!". We followed blindly, got off the bus, grabbed our backpacks and stopped a cab. The first cab refused to take us because he didn't understand the map and asked us to take the next cab. While we were on the way to the hostel in the cab, I was actually secretly praying that the cab driver COULD understand the map and bring us to the right location.
Things didn't turn out as what we planned. Because, the hostel missed our booking!!! And, it's fully-occupied. We didn't even have a bed!!! We knew it's useless to make any fuss there because the receptionist could not make any decision as well. (The booking fee was wasted.) So, after getting some directions from her to the nearest hotel, we went to the street and look for it again. It's not very near for walking distance, furthermore we were carrying big back-packs walking on the street in the midnight. We tried to catch cab, but obviously the distance is too short for the cab too. No cabs wanted to fetch us. Thinking that we only left few hours of sleep before going to Shanghai the next morning, and also the expensive rate of the hotel which exceeded our budget, we made a brave decision.
We decided to go to Shanghai directly.
To save time. To save funds.
We walked back to the hostel again and asked for details of the trains to Shanghai. The receptionist told us that there's train to Shanghai in the midnight. So, we caught another cab and went to the train station at Hangzhou City.
The train station was quite empty by the time we reached. We bought our tickets.
Only one type of tickets left. And, noticed that there's no seat numbers stated. We asked and the lady told us, "You sit if you found a seat, else you stand until you get a seat."
0_0
We were trying to comfort ourselves that.... "Aiya...see the station is so empty now and it's MIDNIGHT, where got so many people take train one hor?? Sure can get seats one lah....."
Inside the boarding hall of train station,
Still, we tried to comfort ourselves until when the train stopped in front of us.
We both looked at each other and said, "Okay........... obviously China people DO take trains in the midnights."
T______T
The train was already FULLED before we got on, so full that we couldn't even get in it.
I was in fact shocked while Ivan pulled my hand up into the entrance of the train. But, I didn't know how to proceed.
We had to squeeze into it....while the people behind me pushing me at my back while shouting, "Xiao jie, ni jiu kuai jing qu ba...ji jing qu ah!!!" (Miss, you just enter, squeeze inside!)
I was practically pulled and pushed into the cabin. There were times when my backpack stucked between the people I walked through (pulling by Ivan) which they had to help me push inside.
When we were finally inside the cabin, it's fulled of people. We could hardly found a STANDING place. Ivan spotted empty space above and he walked further in order to put our backpacks up. I could not move because I didn't know how to squeeze in again (I saw no standing place inside) and yelled for help. Ivan told me to hand over my backpack to him, I put down my backpack and wanted to pass it to him, but it's too heavy. So, the people between us started to help me passing over my backpack to Ivan!!! T___T Then, Ivan walked (squeezed) back to my side again and we stood there for the whole journey.
The hallway we squeezed and pushed through.
The full cabin.
The journey to Shanghai took around 4 hours. We stood there 4 hours. Sleepless.
Fortunately, the sun rose by the time we reached Shanghai. We caught a cab and travelled to another hostel we've booked. We were supposed to reach Shanghai at noon if following our initial plan. We didn't know whether there would be any room available for our early arrival. We were just giving a bet.
Fortunately, there was. But then, the receptionist counter opens at 7.30am so we went to have our breakfast nearby first. Oh, we actually reached the hostel around 6.30am. Luckily, they are early people.
Our first breakfast.
I think this noodles tasted similar with my hometown's "Kampua".
Noodles in soup with pork slices and chili oil
Xiu Long Bao!!!!!!!!
The sifu making xiu long bao..
The menu board.
Take note of the price. DAMN CHEAP!!
I miss this shop so much!!!
After the breakfast, we returned to the hostel and took a nap at the lobby while waiting the counter to open. When we finally got our room, we cleaned ourselves and crashed into the beds.
...............
To be continued.
