Thursday, September 25. Much cooler today after more rain yesterday. It's overcast with a nice breeze. I teach two classes today, morning and afternoon. Work in FT office this morning.
We got paid by WT yesterday so we now have 2432 yuan in each of our bank accounts. I have to go to Bank of China to get my passbook updated. This is what we get paid each month, something in excess of $300, depending upon the exchange rate.
This afternoon, I go to the travel agency with JuJu. Because I've had to switch my travel plans from Monday to Tuesday, I don't have any luck here. Apparently, the travel agencies have so many tickets allotted to them, and they had "saved" a ticket for me for Monday night. So we try other alternatives: going directly to Nanjing from ZZ, going to Suzhou, going to Shanghai, etc etc. Nothing is available. Buying train tickets in China is just a huge pain!
JuJu and I go to the supermarket directly across the street from the travel agency to pick up a few things. At this point, I'm thinking maybe I'll just stay in Zhuzhou for the week! Traveling seems too difficult. Back home for dinner.
Later, feeling somewhat revived, Suzanne and I decide to go to yet another place that sells only train tickets, a sort of ticket agent office. Amazingly, we snag the last two hard sleeper tickets for Nanjing on an overnight train! Of course, the tickets are for Monday night (tickets for Tuesday night will not go on sale until tomorrow, 5 days prior to travel date). I've decided that, the way things change so often (and at the last minute), perhaps I will be able to use the Monday night ticket. Otherwise, Christa (another WT volunteer) will use it and I will buy a ticket for Tuesday night. However, just by having succeeded in buying a ticket, I feel as though I have found the Holy Grail!
Of course, the other interesting thing about train travel is that, since you cannot buy tickets until 5 days prior to travel date, we cannot buy return tickets from Nanjing to ZZ. We will have to buy those in Nanjing! Is it possible that we could get to Nanjing and not get back? Is this the craziest system or what?
Back home, I go online to make hotel reservations and am successful at that too. Looks like a good hotel at a reasonable price in Nanjing. So I'm definitely going somewhere next week!
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