So below is a collection of journal entries I did on my phone throughout my vacation... I went with Maddy, teacher here in ZJG, and Madison, a teacher in Jiaxing through CIEE who was on my flight.

I'm waiting in the train station in Wuxi and a train just past by-it got me super excited. I love trains. I think this is going to be such a great trip. China is a wonderful place and this is a fabulous experience I'm only a month into!!   Oct. 3 10:04 PM

So I'm laying here on the train. It's unlike anything I've ever experienced. To the left of me is a bed like mine, maybe two feet wide and most definitely not longer than five and a half feet. I have a pillow and a blanket although the blanket is under my knees partially and my purse is at my feet. Below me are 2 beds exactly like my own and kitty corner is the same. To the right there is a wall, on the other side of the wall there's Madison and then next to her is Maddy. I'm sleeping with my head toward the aisle, beyond my head is the luggage rack holding my oversized and overpacked backpack along with our shoes holding our glasses. I can't believe I had the impression we'd have a small little room to ourselves!! Lol well I'm perfectly content and think this is a wonderful experience, how many people can say they took an 11 hour train ride sleeping in a 2x5.5 ft bed with 6 other people in the immediate area and probably 6 other areas the same?!? It's absolutely the experience of a lifetime. And with that I'll try and get some sleep. Oct. 4 12:07 AM

So it's only 7:26 and were already off the train, we've been to the bathroom and are back in line trying to buy our return tickets. I was woken up this morning by a man hitting my shoulder wanting my ticket. It wasn't even 7:00 yet, definitely not 11 hours like I had thought-more like 8! Anyways we got a tourist map already too.  She said 5 I said 1 she said no so I started to walk away she followed and said 2 so I said okay :-) my 1st bargaining experience. But I'll admit I read somewhere that you can get them for 1or 2 so I'm not sure if I would have thought to do that if I hadn't read about it. I'll have to try again with souvenirs. So the bed wasn't too bad, I think it may have been more plush than my bed at my apt. Although I did end up using the blanket as it did get cold eventually. I must have woke up at least once an hour but fell back asleep immediately. I think it took me a while to fall asleep in the first place. I was listening to my relaxing music and remember waking up when the last track ended so I'm not sure how long I had slept for that time. Oct. 4 7:35 AM

So that was while I was on vacation, now that I'm back, and yes this is definitely delayed seeing as how it's Oct. 19 and I got back Oct. 7 but better late than never!

So day by day-

Oct. 3-This was the day we left for our vacation.  We caught a bus out of ZJG at 3:30 to go to Wuxi.  This took about an hour and a half.  Within the first few minutes on the bus the driver was rather horn happy-he honked his horn at everything.  I decided I should count how many times he honks his horn, by the time we got to Wuxi it was over 75 times, I stopped counting!  It was crazy, what made it worse was we were seated directly behind the driver, needless to say my head was aching by the time we made it to Wuxi from the loud, obnoxious horn.  Once we arrived in Wuxi we found the train station so we knew where we needed to be later that night and decided we should get some dinner.  Rather than go on a wild goose chase with our bags (mine was pretty heavy) we decided to crash at McDonald’s, which was right next to the train station.  We had a great time playing cards to pass the time.  We eventually headed over to the train station around 9 since our train was to leave at 10:46 or something. We ended up waiting around til 11:30 when our train finally got there. We were unsure what to expect about our train but it worked out well.

Oct. 4-So after maybe 5 hours of “sleep” we arrived in Tai’An (much sooner than we thought we would).  We ended up getting our return tickets after waiting in line for a good 45 minutes at least.  Well I waited off to the side while Maddy and Madison got the tickets.  Turned out the only available return train was the next day, Oct. 5 at 8 or Oct. 10 which was too late since we had to be back to teach on the 9^th.  We found our way out of the train station to try and find a bus to take us to our hostel.  After looking a few different places, “talking” to some locals, we found where the right bus stop was and which stop was ours.  Well riding the bus didn’t go quite as smoothly as we thought it would.  We ended up missing our stop, so we had to get off the bus and get back on the next one going the direction we had just came from!  It was hard because the bus stops were hardly marked and if they were it was in like size 10 font on the side of a post.  All in all we made it to the hostel got our room, refueled on some peanut butter sandwiches, and discussed our plans for our 2 days there.  We ended up getting lunch at a place that was recommended in the guidebook before visiting the Dai Temple.  The restaurant was known for dumplings so we ordered some but were unsure how much to order along with another dish, and if we would need a 3^rd dish. The server told us that we should get 3 dishes so we did, and ended up with WAY too much food.   The dumplings came out last after we’d ate a good portion of potatoes and some delicious kung pao chicken.  We had 2 full plates of dumplings and hardly finished one.  All things considered, it was a good lunch but I’m not quite sure why our server thought we could manage to eat all of that and didn’t recommend that we only order 2 dishes.  We visited the Dai Temple next and spent about 3 hours there.  It was huge and there were a lot historical statues and whatnot to check out as well as a performance by an “elderly” group.  It was pretty entertaining.   After the temple we went to a Hot-Pot restaurant, this was my first time at one.  It was really good. We ended up accidently ordering some type of brain…it said flower brain, which I guess, is also or close to what they call broccoli or cauliflower but definitely not in this case. We got them to take it away which is good because we surely weren’t going to eat it!  We had some type of pork, bean sprouts, mushrooms, and “spinach” which wasn’t what we thought it was going to be-it was more like fish meat balls or something… but I liked the Hot-Pot J  After dinner we thought it’d be a good idea to go back to the hostel and get a bit of sleep before climbing the mountain.  We didn’t end up getting back, showered, and into bed until 8:30 or so which didn’t allow for too much sleep since we were getting back up at 11:30 to head to Mount Tai. We left the hostel about midnight after maybe 2 hours of sleep and that’s stretching it!

Oct. 5-We arrived at the foot of the mountain at 1 and were able to get our tickets for half price by showing them our student ID cards from our US universities.  It was 60 Yuan instead of 120.  We stopped at the halfway point to sit and have some peanut butter sandwiches and put on warmer clothes although we were sweating so much it was getting colder and colder as we approached the summit.  After 3 hours of burning thighs and playing a geography game to keep our minds off of our burning thighs, as if that was possible, we ended up reaching the summit at 4:05.  It was over 6500 steps to the top, I found 50 Yuan at the summit as well! It was so cold at the top! They had big Russian looking coats you could rent out but piled on our hats, scarves, and gloves to keep warm. We also had a milk tea to pass the time and heat ourselves up.  They say that everything increases in price as you go up the mountain-I paid 8 Yuan for a milk tea at the top that I saw for 2.5 at the supermarket a couple days when I came back.  It’s a huge money making opportunity up there.  We had to wait around until 6 or so for the sun to come out and it was crazy how many other people were there!  Out of all the other people we only saw 2 people with Wisconsin sweatshirts on and 1 guy from Germany, the rest were Asian! We had done something that was truly a Chinese holiday activity J  We ended up heading back down the mountain around 7:30.  At the halfway point Madison and I took a bus to the bottom.  Going down the mountain was just as painful as going up! It was terrible on our knees and calves! There was the constant fear going up and down of missing a step and tumbling down all of them taking out several people at the same time. We got back to the hostel around 9 and attempted to get some sleep.  About 1:30 we got up, got ready and went to get some lunch. The guidebook had mentioned a bakery and it was only a couple blocks from our hostel so we went there, it was delicious! After the bakery we went to find this church that had been mentioned in the guidebook, I think we found it but it was not open so we took a couple pictures and headed to get an iced coffee at McDonald’s…not your typical iced coffee either, this had ice cream on top! It was pretty good and that definitely says something since I don’t care for coffee usually!  Although to add ice cream kinda makes it more of a dessert and I don’t even know if I’d classify it as coffee then!  We got some stamps for our postcards, went back to the hostel and hung out there before leaving for our 8:00 train. One of the hostel workers/owners actually gave us a ride to the station so that was great, we didn’t have to deal with the buses or cab it there with all of our big bags-or at least me with my big bag.  So we got to the train station with a couple hours to wait.  I forgot to mention when we got our return tickets the only thing they had available were standing tickets. We weren’t quite sure what to expect with this one but we knew it couldn’t be too good.  We figured it was a rush to the train cart so we waited in line well before they’d let us go just to make sure we could be 1^st.  Once they opened the gate we ran to get the platform but a worker stopped us and we all had to wait so I thought “Great, we’re at the front of the line, this lady will take us to the platform and we’ll be able to get on 1^st and grab any open seats.” Boy was I wrong, we all lined up, then she started us walking and before I knew it everyone was racing around us so we started running-keep in mind our legs have already had intense exercise from climbing the mountain-we had to run up a flight of stairs, then down a hallway then back down a flight of stairs. OUCH. It hurt. But that wasn’t all; we had to run even more! Our train car was the 1^st one so we had to run all the way down to the end of the platform, but the tricky part was that it wasn’t marked where the cars would stop so we spaced ourselves out somewhat but then the train started coming and I was closest to the end so I bolted to the doorway. Not that it helped too much because when I got in I wasn’t sure which way to go and there were SO many people on the train already.  We found one seat and didn’t think it’d get too much better than that so we settled in there and planned on rotating with the seat.  I decided I’d sit on the floor for a while which wasn’t so bad, people had expected me to get up for them to walk by but it was much more work and didn’t make any sense so I just had them climb over my legs and it worked just as well if not better since I didn’t have to get up constantly. After about 2 hours I decided to stand and stretch my legs when a man offered me his seat.  So I took it and talked to him for a bit, he was university student who was heading back to college.  I continually asked him if he wanted his seat but he kept telling me “you sit, you sit” so I did.

Oct. 6-About midnight I started to doze off and would doze off for about 20 min each time waking up with a cramp in my next.  I didn’t bring my neck pillow since we had a sleeper train on the way there and I didn’t think I’d need it!  Once again about 3 AM I asked him if he wanted his seat and he said if I wasn’t tired he’d take it.  So I gave it back to him, stood for about an hour then the people around our 1 seat left and the 3 of us were able to sit.  We had thought we’d be back in Wuxi by 4 since it didn’t take very long the 1^st time but of course when we’re not in a sleeper car it would take longer.  The train kept making random stops and would sit in stations for 30 minutes or so.  The lady across from me while I was sitting kept putting her feet up right next to my legs and there was a disgustingly in love couple next to her so it was quite the trip. Also it wasn’t air conditioned so there were times I could have sworn it was 100 degrees in there with no ventilation and about 100 people-you can only imagine…We finally made it to Wuxi around 8 AM.  We were tired, hot, hungry, and sore.  We resorted once again to the McDonald’s for breakfast.  We had booked a Super8 motel since our bus tickets were for the 7^th so we had a day and a half to spend in Wuxi.  One we ate breakfast we went to find a cab to take us to our hotel but then I saw it was kinda just across the street but of course it wasn’t quite that easy to get there.  About 25 min later we’re at the reception desk being told they don’t have our reservation and we should go around the corner to 7 Days Inn (or something)…frustrating! So we go there and they don’t have any rooms available.  We see a 25 story or so hotel across the street from the 7 Day, looks expensive but at this point we’d already been turned down 2x and figured we’d try it.  We walk in and are amazed, it’s beautiful, clean, and so nice.  Turns out its 488 for a room with 2 beds but they’re not very big so we get an extra bed for 200-total bout 100 US…not too shabby.  We checked in, showered in their amazing shower, and crashed. We hadn’t had a full nights sleep since the night of Oct. 2 and it was now Oct. 6.  We slept from 11 AM to 6 PM and I’m pretty sure the only reason we woke up was because the room attendant knocked on our door!  So we decided we probably should get some dinner, we went to Ajisen Noodle, apparently it’s a chain all over the world, and they have seaweed salad!!!! It was so good, not just the seaweed salad, but the pork and rice dish I ordered was stupendous as well.  After dinner we went and got some water and decided we’d just relax in the hotel room and explore Wuxi the next day.  The hotel gave us a card for a free soda or juice so we went and got some chocolate mousse to enjoy with our soda.

Oct. 7-We slept in…even though we had gone to bed at midnight we still slept til about 10, and that’s after sleeping for 7 hours the DAY before…that just tells you how sleep deprived we were!  The hotel had a baggage check so we explored Wuxi with the luxury of not having to lug around our bags.  We were going to go to Lake Tai but apparently it’s quite a distance from the city so we went shopping instead. There wasn’t really much in the guidebook to see in Wuxi.  I ended up buying a winter coat that’s super cute and heavy so it should be good.  It was only 300 Yuan (roughly $36) this was especially good since I didn’t bring mine!  Yadda, yadda, yadda, not too much more exciting stuff happened the rest of the day. We caught our bus home at 7 ended up going to a different bus station in ZJG and were unsure of where we were but turned out we were pretty close to our school. 

Really long entry and rather detailed but that’s how I remember my vacation.  I really enjoyed it and feel like we did a pretty authentic Chinese vacation and that makes me happy.  We got to experience the sleeper car, standing car, and much more.  It was really great to get away for a couple days and see a different part of China. It was also some good girl time! J Always good to have that!