5.11.2016 Qufu to Nanjing or The Day Guy Found Coldplay

So we woke up, one of us was feeling rough and very ill. Guys stomach didn’t take to something he had last night and at first I was very sympathetic thinking it was food poisoning however it became clear the second bottle of Biaju hadn’t agreed with him, in fact he seemed well out of it still. He asked if we could postpone the train today but neither of us could face rebooking the tickets and accomodation, our Chinese barely got us a beer! 

So, I prepared for the journey in the style of Tracy Davies, I packed plastic bags for him to chunder into, and told him to get on with it. Tray is such an inspiration. 

He looked dreadful! Photos below to prove that. 

We packed and got a taxi to the station. Yes, it was 40 yuan compared to 2 yuan. The taxi turned up and the driver was happily smoking in his car, just as I thought Guy couldn’t look paler, he wilted a little more. Cigarette was extinguished and we had a 12km drive to the station. 

There have been a couple of songs this trip thay have followed us around, links are below. 

Simon and Garfunkel Sound of Silence (the irony being that is the last thing you will experience in China) 

One is Coldplay, and as you probably know Guy is not a Coldplay fan, bland, middle of the road, populist music are the polite phrases he would use, however I came back from getting 2 half litres of green tea to find him with earphones inserted, content, singing away to Paradise  I had to do a double take and check I had the right husband!!! I can only assume the Biaju had a severe affect on his mental capacity. 

We were called up to the train platform and queued in an orderly fashion. Suddenly a high speed train shot through on the next platform over. It scared the wits out of me, or as Guy put it ‘That scared the bile out of me’. At least he hadn’t lost his sense of humour. 

Train boarded and we only had 2 hours to last, Guy made it, with the help of Chris Martin and friends. 

We then needed to get to the hostel, 2 subway train journeys were required as well as long queues for tickets, he nearly flaked on the train. Photos below to proof that. 

We finally got to the hostel, only a couple of new construction projects meant we needed to make some detours. 

Amazingly there were no cafes or restaurants nearby and, of course, our hostel didn’t have one, they just sold drinks so went to the local supermarket, got 2 pot noodles, snickers and sugar drink and ate them. Guy collapsed.

I sorted out laundry and had a pot of tea and wrote this blog and whats app’d everyone to tell them how Guy was feeling. 

Guy decided he needed comfort for tea and soup and chips is what he wanted. I wanted a dirty burger! We had a very fancy restaurant alley down the road from us to wandered around the neon, chose James Bar and had a chilli burger. It was delicious, even with the westerners sitting in the doorway blowing his cigarette smoke over us.