M-whY

The cruise actually came to an end in Yicheng, a city about five hours away from Wuhan. At 4:00 in the morning, we docked for everyone to disembark in a disorganized mess. Cruise rules permitted passengers to sleep in til 6:00am before being kicked off (or thrown overboard), but since shuttles to Wuhan left as soon as the collected enough passengers, almost everyone began their day at 4:00. The only two that I knew were taking advantage of those extra two hours were Patrick and Emma, who were planning on catching a flight from Yicheng that didn't leave til early afternoon. Fortunately for me, my prebooked shuttle went smoothly, with someone holdup up my (mispelled) name again to direct me where to go. Jack, another Brit I had met on board wasn't so lucky, having some sort of mixup with his own transportation. Being the unofficial interpretor onboard, I was called on to help, and things came to a happy conclusion, as they always do.

I'm not a morning person - usually when I'm up at this hour it's because I haven't gone to bed yet. I slept the entire way from Yicheng to Wuhan. On the cab ride from the bus station to the hotel where my pre-booked train ticket was being held, I noticed that the place seemed a little quiet. I couldn't quite figure out why until we passed an intersection with a 'No Horn' sign. Apparently, the city passed a horn prohibition a few years back to cut down on noise levels. Not even when another cab nearly T-boned mine did anyone honk at each other. The two driver's just sort of glared at each other and went their separate ways. Definately a first in China for me.

There were no mixups with the ticket, and so I cabbed to the train station for my sleeper to Shanghai. There are many sights enroute worth stopping off at, but there was this little problem of running out of time on my visa. I still hadn't figured out how I was going to invoke the next 30 days of my double entry visa. By arranging my arrival in Shanghai five days before expiry, I gave myself some peace of mind. Worst case scenario, I could spend two days in transit to and from Hong Kong.

The train was scheduled for 2:45pm, but delays kept pushing departure time back. First to 3:15, then 3:45, then 4:15... The delays didn't bother me all that much - I was committed to wasting a day in Wuhan anyways - but it would've been nice had they told us front it'd be a long wait rather than breaking the news in 30 minute intervals. This way, I could've hung out at an internet cafe or something instead of twiddling my thumbs in the waiting room. Finally, four hours later, we were on board and moving, another example of how, with some patience, everything always works out.

Thanks to everyone for their support and comments! Knowing people are reading keeps me motivated to continue the updates!