By this time I need to get to the train station - I have nearly a forty hour ride ahead of me. The station is a bit confusing but with my ticket and the expression 我 应该 那里 去 (wo yinggai nàli qù; where should I go) I get to my place. There are three middle aged men in the same compartment, and one of them asks me about where I am from, what I am doing in China, and how much money I am going to make. Then when the train ticket girl is copying down information from my passport, he is leaning over to look at my passport information. A little creepy, but notions of privacy are not the same here. I settle in for the long train ride, and do puzzles and listen to Chinese lessons on my MP3 player. The countryside is a bit desolate looking; not much life in the fields during winter though we do see some of those fields in layers and some neat looking houses carved into the sides of mountains.
My arrival is about 11 am, and I tried to call both my hostel and the friend of a friend here in order to get someone to meet me at the train station. No luck, and I am stuck with a taxi again. Thankfully it is only 8 kuai to the hostel, which is a really neat older building of about three stories with a big open courtyard in the middle. It is a bit rough around the edges though - noisy and messy with renos, and the walls are covered with travel message graffiti. Like many buildings here, it is unheated and there are a couple of little coal pits in the entrance with a few guests, in coats, huddled around mostly playing cards or working on laptops. They have 24 hour hot water though, which steams luxuriously in the six degree air and feels miraculous after the 40 hour train ride. I meet up with friends of friends who live here and we hang out in the afternoon and go out for dinner.
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